When Knighthood Was In Flower (1922)

WHEN KNIGHTHOOD WAS IN FLOWER 

    D: Robert G. Vignola                   (1922)  ¢ ¢ 1/2

    Marion Davies, Lyn Harding, William Norris,

    William Powell, Forrest Stanley, Flora Finch

A silent costume adventure starring William Randolph Hearst's girlfriend as Mary Queen of Scots. In this account of her early life, Mary's just turned 16 and her big brother, Henry VIII, wants to marry her off to the doddering king of France, when Mary breaks with royal protocol by falling in love with a commoner. Hearst liked seeing Davies in period pieces, and this is one of them. It looks like a million bucks, and it should: It cost a million and a half to produce. There are swordfights and chases on horseback, treachery and romance, daring rescues and narrow escapes, but at two hours, it feels kind of long. Skinny, young William H. Powell, in his second film and still more than a decade away from "The Thin Man", plays a knave who wants to deflower the queen.

Even Cowgirls Get the Blues (1993)

 

EVEN COWGIRLS GET THE BLUES  (1993)  ¢ 1/2

    D: Gus Van Sant

    Uma Thurman, John Hurt, Rain Phoenix, 

    Lorraine Bracco, Pat Morita, Angie Dickinson,

    Keanu Reeves, Ed Begley Jr., Carol Kane,

    Sean Young, Crispin Glover, Buck Henry,

    Heather Graham, Udo Kier, Eliza Butterfly

Gus Van Sant tries to make something out of Tom Robbins' bestselling cult novel about a posse of lesbian ranch hands (a literal "pussy posse") and a woman with oversized thumbs. Robbins' books generally are loose on plot and long on whimsy and wordplay, which works fine on the page sometimes, but can be hard to translate to the screen. The movie's broadly played and heavy-handed, and while some of the language is fun, the rhetorical posturing wears thin real quick, whether it's John Hurt as a flaming queen who's made a fortune in the feminine hygiene business, or Rain Phoenix as the gun-totin' leader of an all-dyke cowgirl gang. Robbins narrates. Ken Kesey and William S. Burroughs make cameo appearances. The music's by k.d. lang.

Tom Robbins

(1932-2o25)

Venom (1981)

 

VENOM  (1981)  ¢ ¢ ¢

    D: Piers Haggard

    Klaus Kinski, Oliver Reed, Nicol Williamson

    Sterling Hayden, Sarah Miles, Susan George,

    Lance Holcomb, Cornelia Sharpe, Michael Gough

Three bungling criminals - a maid, a chauffeur and an alleged mastermind - kidnap a ten-year-old boy and hold him for ransom. Sadly, one of the many things they've failed to anticipate is the kid's newest pet, a black mamba, which (of course) escapes from its crate and could be lurking anywhere, ready to strike. You can imagine Hitchcock having some fun checking off all the ways a carefully worked-out crime can go wrong, and the movie does an okay job of that, despite an insane conclusion and a few too many shots inside heating ducts from the snake's point of view. It was what's called a troubled shoot. Klaus Kinski and Oliver Reed hated each other, and Tobe Hooper, the original director, quit after clashing with Kinski. Sterling Hayden's last theatrical film. 

Zenobia (1939)

 

ZENOBIA  (1939)  ¢ ¢ 1/2

    D: Gordon Douglas 

    Oliver Hardy, Harry Langdon, Billie Burke,

    Jean Parker, James Ellison, Alice Brady, 

    June Lang, Olin Howland, J. Farrell MacDonald,

    Stepin Fetchit, Hattie McDaniel, Philip Hurlic

Oliver Hardy, in one of the few sound films he made without Stan Laurel, plays a small-town doctor in post-Civil War Mississippi. Harry Langdon, years beyond his heyday as one of the silent era's great comedy stars, plays a medicine-show impresario whose main attraction is an elephant. That could be an interesting pairing, but the material's not up to it, and Langdon's not Laurel when it comes to chemistry with Ollie. The racial stereotyping is awkward at best, and excruciating whenever Stepin Fetchit is on screen. Good performance by the elephant, though.

Renfield (2023)

 

RENFIELD  (2023)  ¢ ¢ ¢ 1/2

    D: Chris McKay

    Nicholas Hoult, Nicolas Cage, Awkwafina,

    Ben Schwartz, Shohreh Aghashloo, Bess Rous

    Brandon Scott Jones, Camille Chen, Jenna Kanell

Crazed action/horror mayhem starring Nicolas Cage as a maniacally unhinged Dracula. Mountains of corpses. Oceans of blood. A guilty pleasure. Cage's performance is gonzo, even for Nicolas Cage. 

The Woman In Green (1945)

 

THE WOMAN IN GREEN  (1945)  ¢ ¢ ¢

    D: Roy William Neill

    Basil Rathbone, Nigel Bruce, Hillary Brooke,

    Henry Daniell, Paul Cavanagh, Matthew Boulton

Somebody's been murdering women all over London and leaving them with their right index fingers cut off. Who would do something like that? And why? Could Professor Moriarty be involved? And isn't he supposed to be dead? Better call Sherlock Holmes.

Thirteen Woman (1932)

 

THIRTEEN WOMEN  (1932)  ¢ ¢ 1/2

    D: George Archainbaud

    Irene Dunne, Ricardo Cotez, Myrna Loy, 

    Jill Esmond, Mary Duncan, Kay Johnson,

    Florence Eldridge, C. Henry Gordon, Peg Entwistle

Women who attended the same finishing school together start getting horoscopes in the mail from an astrologer, telling them they're going to die. When the predictions start to come true, the surviving women become concerned. Myrna Loy, still typecast as Asian vamps, plays the astrologer's devious assistant. Nora Charles she's not. Tabloid footnote: Peg Entwistle, who made her only movie appearance as one of the thirteen women, committed suicide by jumping off the HOLLYWOOD sign two days after the film's release.