Carry On Loving (1970)

 

CARRY ON LOVING  (1970)  ¢ ¢ ¢

    D: Gerald Thomas

    Sidney James, Kenneth Williams, Hattie Jacques,

    Charles Hawtrey, Joan Sims, Bernard Bresslaw,

    Richard O'Callaghan, Jacki Piper, Terry Scott,

    Imogen Hassall, Patsy Rowlands, Janet Mahoney

A "Carry On" sex farce starring Sid James and Hattie Jacques as a bickering couple running a matchmaking agency, Kenneth Williams as a marriage counselor, and Charles Hawtrey as a private eye. The punning is naughty and nonstop, and it ends with a spectacular pie fight. That's "Carry On".

Birds of Prey: Harley Quinn (2020)

 

BIRDS OF PREY: AND THE FANTABULOUS 

EMANCIPATION OF ONE HARLEY QUINN 

    D: Cathy Yan                                      (2020)  ¢ ¢ 1/2

    Margot Robbie, Ewan McGregor, Rosie Perez,

    Mary Elizabeth Winstead, Jurnee Smollet-Bell,

    Ella Jay Basco, Chris Messina, Ali Wong

If there was one character in "Suicide Squad" that viewers wanted to see more of - even some who didn't especially like the movie - it was probably Margot Robbie's maniacal, bat-wielding Harley Quinn. You do get more of her in this film - a lot more - and like some other characters who work better in ensembles or in support, it's a bit much. The story's a functional mess, about a missing diamond and a crazed gangster (Ewan McGregor) who wants it back. There's plenty of comic-book vi0lence, the production design looks good, and it's chaotic in a way that effectively reflects its lead character's personality, but fantabulous it ain't. The chance to do something interesting with a makeshift team of kick-ass women is mostly wasted, and the character you end up wanting to to see more of this time around isn't Harley, but a black-clad warrior called the Huntress, played by Mary Elizabeth Winstead. Maybe she'll get her own movie, too, someday. Maybe it'll be a better one than this.

Fool's Parade (1971)

 

FOOL'S PARADE  (1971)  ¢ ¢ ¢ ¢

    D: Andrew V. McLaglen

    James Stewart, George Kennedy, Strother Martin,

    Kurt Russell, Anne Baxter, William Windom,

    Mike Kellin, David Huddleston, Kathy Cannon

In 1935, three convicts (Jimmy Stewart, Strother Martin and Kurt Russell) get out of prison with a check for $25,000 and a plan to open a store together. A corrupt prison guard (George Kennedy, with bad teeth) stands in their way. An offbeat character study wrapped in a period chase movie, in which the cons are the heroes, the cops are the villains, and the harder the would-be storekeepers try to get away, the more they don't go anywhere at all. It might be the best thing Andrew McLaglen ever did. Anne Baxter has a juicy cameo as a houseboat madam, and Stewart, flashing (and sometimes removing) a conspicuous glass eye, gives his most colorful late-career performance. 

Duck and Cover (1952)

DUCK AND COVER  (1952)  ¢ ¢ ¢
    D: Anthony Rizzo
A generation of Cold-War-era schoolchildren grew up with this educational short in which a cartoon turtle shows kids how to protect themselves in the event of a nuclear attack. As time-capsule artifacts go, the movie's both funny and horrifying. It was added to the National Film Registry in 2004, and turns up as a segment in "The Atomic Cafe" (1982).

Screen Test / Take 15

 

Match the following movies with the actors who appeared in them:

                     1. "Beat the Devil"

                     2. "The Devil's Disciple" 

                     3. "Before the Devil Knows You're Dead"

                     4. "Devil In a Blue Dress"

                     5. "The Devil At 4 O'Clock"

                     6. "Shake Hands With the Devil"

                     7. "Devil's Island"

                     8. "The Devil Rides Out"

                     9. "The Devil Bat"

                   10. "The Devils"

                           a. James Cagney

                           b. Boris Karloff

                           c. Frank Sinatra

                           d. Oliver Reed

                           e. Humphrey Bogart

                           f. Philip Seymour Hoffman

                           g. Bela Lugosi

                           h. Denzel Washington

                            i. Kirk Douglas

                            j. Christopher Lee

1-e / 2-i / 3-f / 4-h / 5-c / 6-a / 7-b / 8-j / 9-g / 10-d

Destination Murder (1950)

 

DESTINATION MURDER  (1950)  ¢ ¢ ¢ 1/2

    D: Edward L. Cahn

    Joyce Mackenzie, Hurd Hatfield, Stanley Clements,

    Albert Decker, Myrna Dell. James Flavin,

   John Dehner, Richard Emory, Franklyn Farnum

A college student goes undercover as a cigarette girl to pursue her own investigation into her father's murder. A twisty, low-budget film noir in which the double-crossers never stop double-crossing each other and a player piano tuned to Beethoven's "Moonlight Sonata" plays an important supporting role. Cahn was an efficient and prolific B-movie director whose other credits include "Cage of Evil", "Noose for a Gunman" and "The Four Skulls of Jonathan Drake".

Brief Encounter (1974)

 

BRIEF ENCOUNTER  (1974)  ¢ ¢

    D: Alan Bridges

    Sophia Loren, Richard Burton, Jack Hedley,

    Rosemary Leach, Ann Firbank, Gwen Cherrell

A doctor and a social-services caseworker, both married, but not to each other, meet in a railroad station and fall in love. Sophia looks regal and composed. Burton looks like he's dying for a drink. Neither can do much with the script. Made for television. 

Buchanan Rides Alone (1958)

BUCHANAN RIDES ALONE  (1958)  ¢ ¢ ¢ 1/2

    D: Budd Boetticher

    Randolph Scott, Craig Stevens, Barry Kelley,

    Tol Avery, Peter Whitney, Manuel Rojas,

    Fritz Field, George Irving, Virginia Walker

Randolph Scott rides into a border town where the main form of community entertainment appears to be watching people hang and seeing that they do. It's not long before Scott finds a noose around his own neck, but it's clear that these townspeople haven't seen any Randolph Scott movies, or they'd know better than to do something like that. Another morally shifty Scott/Boetticher western, with Scott going to great lengths to protect an admitted murderer from a crooked sheriff, a corrupt judge and a town full of cretins who aren't much more than a resident lynch mob. There's a sardonic element to Scott's performance that cuts through his customary stoicism (he had a knack for comedy), and L.Q. Jones makes an impression in an early role as a fellow West Texan who catches a bullet long before the picture ends.

The Flame and the Arrow (1950)

 

THE FLAME AND THE ARROW  (1950)  ¢ ¢ ¢ ¢

    D: Jacques Tourneur

    Burt Lancaster, Virginia Mayo, Robert Douglas, 

    Nick Cravat, Aline McMahon, Norman Lloyd

"Robin Hood" transplanted to the mountains and forests of Northern Italy. A gleefully energetic costume adventure with a bracing Max Steiner musical score, obviously designed to showcase the acrobatic talents and gleaming teeth of its star. Nick Cravat (the one who doesn't talk) was Lancaster's partner in the circus before Burt got into movies.

Norman Lloyd

(1914-2021)

Gwendoline (1984)

 

GWENDOLINE  (1984)  ¢ 1/2

    D: Just Jaeckin

    Tawny Kitaen, Brent Huff, Bernadette Lafont,

    Jean Rougerie, Zabou Breitman, Andre Julien

A stupidly silly softcore fantasy in the tradition of "Barbarella" and "Flesh Gordon", starring Tawny Kitaen as a young woman who heads out into the wild, determined to track down her lost father, or capture the exotic butterfly he disappeared trying to get. Some of the art direction looks pretty cool, but there's a difference between making a movie that looks good and making a good movie, and "Gwendoline" demonstrates that. Original U.S. title: "The Perils of Gwendoline In the Land of the Yik Yak".

Tawny Kitaen

(1961-2021)

Steamboat Bill Jr. (1928)

STEAMBOAT BILL JR.  (1928)  ¢ ¢ ¢ ¢ ¢

    D: Charles Riesner

    Buster Keaton, Ernest Torrence, Marion Byron,

    Tom McGuire, Tom Lewis, Joe Keaton

Buster's last great movie. Keaton against the wind.

Speak Easily (1932)

 

SPEAK EASILY  (1932)  ¢ ¢

    D: Edward Sedgwick

    Buster Keaton, Jimmy Durante, Ruth Selwyn,

    Thelma Todd, Hedda Hopper, Sidney Toler

Buster Keaton plays a stodgy college professor who inherits a fortune (he thinks) and decides to invest it in a struggling theater company. You can see where a few of the gags in this might've gone somewhere, if Keaton had had any creative control, but at that point in his career, he didn't, and it all just kind of goes flat. Buster muddles through somehow - he always did - but you can't help thinking he'd rather be somewhere else. 

The Blacksmith (1922)

 

THE BLACKSMITH  (1922)  ¢ ¢ ¢ 1/2

    D: Buster Keaton, Malcolm St. Clair

    Buster Keaton, Virginia Fox, Joe Roberts

Buster Keaton plays a blacksmith at a time when blacksmiths were still shoeing horses, but also fixing cars. Much of the humor revolves around a white horse and a white automobile and what happens when they both end up in a blacksmith shop in the hands of Buster Keaton. Toward the end, it moves out of the shop and speeds up and gets crazy and the gags fly out in all directions, testing the limits of how much comic material a two-reel movie can reasonably contain.

Nympho Cycler (1971)

 

NYMPHO CYCLER  (1971)  ¢ 1/2

    D: Edward D. Wood Jr. (uncredited)

    Lorraine Casey, TV Edwards, Stud Stetson,

    Sherry Duz, Lotti Moore, Betty Boobs, Mary Wood

Ed Wood, the auteur behind such '50s classics as "Jail Bait", "Bride of the Monster" and "Plan 9 From Outer Space", spent the last part of his carer working in pornography, like this nudie flick about the sexual adventures of a photographer's model in and around hippie-era Los Angeles. Ed himself plays the photographer, who doubles as the model's cross-dressing husband and pimp. There's lots of bare skin to be looked at, but in any other way you can think of, this movie makes "Plan 9" look good. The actress listed in the credits as "Lorraine Casey" is Casey Larrain. "TV Edwards" is Mr. Wood. "Stud Stetson"? "Betty Boobs"? "Sherry Duz"? Heck, I don't know. Maybe they felt there was a reason to remain anonymous.