crimmins325

I came upon this classic on the TCM channel. two of the three godfathers were known to me, besides of course the great charles bickford. fred kohler i had seen in "mississippi" the bing musical of 1935; raymond hatton i had spotted in a hilarious abbott & costello tv short of 1952. the rawness of the story was striking from the start, with all the prairie dust and the bar room scene. ok, the baby's survival through all the three's travails was far-fetched, but such license is the same in many top pics. oh yes, i did spot mary gordon in the church scene.

I'm as right-wing a trump supporter as there is, but i found no anti capitalism message in this great film story, as some say there is. just a block buster film with lust, greed, manipulation and with a stunning ending. to my mind, heflin and keyes should have been awarded best actor, actress; the film itself should have been best movie. heflin perfect as the bad cop and gorgeous evelyn keyes perfect as the frustrated lonely wife. i have entered this film into my personal pantheon of three or four favourite films. too bad "the prowler" is largely forgotten. pat bonner

i had heard of Riding High but never saw it until TCM presented the film a few weeks ago. thoroughly entertaining. thoroughly capra, with a few songs thrown in. thoroughly bing. what a combo. some stock capra personnel such as clarence muse, bill demarest (his usual grouchy self),charles lane (when i last heard, he passed his 100th b'day a few years ago). douglas dumbrille, jimmy gleason and etc. etc. "sunshine cake", camptown races", "the horse told me" round out the story musically. colleen gray was nice as the younger sis who won bing in the end. the big race was exciting; had me rooting as if it were for real. you can tell the scenes borrowed from "broadway bill", the grandstand showed the gals in early 30's garb in a 1950 movie. no wonder capra made another pic with bing, "here comes the groom".

1931 also presented "an American tragedy", the original tale of "who will he take up with, poor girl or rich girl". this was a truly entertaining film. Babs stanwyck was a pretty as she could be, ditto sally blane. Monroe owsley, unmemorably played Babs's husband. i had never heard of him, but i thought he bore a good physical resemblance to bing Crosby of "the big broadcast" ('32), even a receding hairline and wingy ears. Ricardo cortez, the rich playboy with a heart of gold. a true movie pioneer going wayyy back. the dilemma is resolved at the end, to the strains of the title and i believe Annette hanshaw had the hit recording, although the off-screen voice did very well. i also enjoyed the dance hall scenes. i'm sure they were authentic; the band, a leading one of the time was superb. good job, Lionel Barrymore!!!!

Back in '56, i saw "the catered affair" but remembered nothing about it, so it was with deep anticipation last night when i saw it on TCM. I have not enjoyed a film more than this one. First of all, the professionalism of the four main actors shines through; all the more when one realizes that the part of a lower middle- class Irish-American Bronx couple of the fifties is not one that one associates with Bette Davis and Ernest Borgnine. Borgnine, a superb actor of Italian background, takes on the part of an Irish-American cabbie with no trouble at all. Davis, whom i have always associated with parts as scheming southern belles, or rich women with some sort of evil agenda, carries off her part superbly, even though the Irish accent is not too discernible. The Irish temperament is very discernible. Miss Reynolds, here again an anomaly, a musical star taking on a straight dramatic role...no problem. Fitzgerald, well, here we have him acting an avuncular part that no one would be surprised by. it's easy to see Mickaleen O'Flynn or

Fr. Fitzgibbon from earlier parts...no change. It's not surprising that this was miss Davis's favorite film; her crying scene was worth the Oscar by itself. I appreciated local on-site locations showing the Bronx courthouse with the old Yankee Stadium, replete with the original light stands in the background and the Bronx Concourse hotel (i had my own wedding reception there). The church shown appears to be St Raymond's on Tremont ave. a tremendously entertaining film that runs the gamut of all emotions; some laughs, some tears.

I've always said that had BOSM been the prequel to GMW, the former would have been more deserving of top honors in '44. Bing Crosby had been in pictures since 1930 and was enjoying unparalleled popularity (before or since), at the time, so the h'wood powers that be must have said, "well, why not...let's give ol' Bing an Oscar". In so doing, bing pulled in Mccarey and Fitzgerald also. GMW's sequel, BOSM, was more deserving of the Oscars, but didn't garner any. Ingrid Bergman gave a great performance as a nun (as in any part, she looked stunning). She should have won the Oscar, instead of Joan Crawford in "Mildred Pierce", a dreadfully shallow film. Someone asked how a swede could be a catholic nun, Sweden being totally lutheran. Mccarey did take some license here, but after all, she could have converted. Another license Mccarey took was Fr. O'malley's being sent from St. Louis, in both films, all the way to new york to work there. the catholic church really doesn't work like that. But, with such licenses, one must overlook them unless they are gross. Bing would have been hard pressed to beat out Ray Milland (Lost Weekend); so, in retrospect, it was good he did get top honors in '44. The supporting cast was miles better than GMW's, Henry Travers, Martha Sleeper, Rhys Williams, Una O'connor, Bill Gargan (he really didn't have much of a part here), and the child actors. The songs were pretty good, esp. the title song, Fr. Bing giving them his characteristic effortless renditions. Some reviewer at the time thought he noticed that Bing and Ingrid, such titanic personalities in the one movie, could be easily imagined to wink at each other in their scenes together. He was probably right. A thoroughly enjoyable film.

I gave this a "7" mainly on the strength of Louis Hayward's performance. I did not catch the beginning credits and so spent the whole picture wondering who young Essex was. I thought it was a young Dirk Bogarde! As noted before, Laraine Day (again a surprise) was miscast, although very pretty indeed. here she was an English girl, daughter of Irish parents, yet with an American accent. Day had a busy year in '40, having a leading lady role in "foreign correspondent". henry hull, as her father, was quite recognizable. Surprisingly, I thought the normally beauteous Madeline Carroll was a bit heavy, and older looking. well, her role did call for her to be a more mature woman, both as a counter-point to young Essex and mature for the older Essex. I don't know anyone who could be more fitting as the young rotter Essex, with Hayward's patented smirk and sarcastic voice. Brent was a study in naivete and at times seemed a bit bewildered how he should act in certain scenes. the movie must have been hard for the Brits to be really interested, what with WW11 already started and this movie's time period being up to and during WW1. Perhaps its production started before sept. '39.

if you want to make a movie smearing big business, chances are you'll stand a chance at an Oscar. Norma Rae; Silkwood; Erin Brockovitch...the list goes on and on. A Civil Action is just another phony indictment of big business added to the list. oh, i bet travolta jumped at the chance to be in this one! Hollywood's loony left thimply adores the phonies who do (clooney, redford, etc). travolta is a lawyer in a firm who represents some massachusetts parents who lost their kids to a contaminated dump. they don't get the multi-million settlement they were looking for; their clients are "stuck" with 375grand each. after taking their 40%, travolta & partners go bankrupt. they had settled for 8mil. well, Hollywood lefties had to have their day...travolta & co pass the case onto others and these boys sock big business for a whopping 69mil. of course, we're not supposed to think about the companies that went under, with all their workers. the travolta lawyer? oh, he's chasing environmental ambulances in new jersey now. another slop job for the lefty loony bin.