2nd best, Shirley !?
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My Shoot the Living Pray for the Dead blu-ray was looking the other way when I typed that.
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1948 was a cracking year for westerns. 1949 seems less so.
She Wore a Yellow Ribbon (Ford 6/10)
Montana (Enright 5/10)
Colorado Territory (Walsh / 7/10)
Noticeable injection of romance and colour into the genre at this point with Colorado Territory the only one that had the balls to play it for tragedy at the end although I’m not sure that as much to do with the Hays code as any artistic decision. Yellow Ribbon is the weakest of Ford’s army trilogy I think and Montana is entertaining enough but definitely playing to the masses with it’s love story centre and musical interludes. 1950 I know will be a lot better for westerns.
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Working my way through a few things. On the one hand: Marcello Mastroianni movies, on the other, the Death Wish franchise. I love contrast 
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Hmmm the last movie I watched … An American in Austen where it mixed drama and passion a very good epoca.
Zorro and the Three Musketeers was more like “Mark Damon and the Four Wine Fanatics” 
I think Gordon Scott looks like Mark Damon 
Not a good film, but at least it had Giacomo Rossi Stuart 
A double bill last night, courtesy of William Castle and ‘Tigon’ - featuring some very strong performances from the actresses involved…
1964
1971
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I hope everyone in the posse here has been good since the last Spagvember marathon!
I rewatched the classic The Innocents (1961) this year. In the past, I’ve read the novella by Henry James twice, I watched the 1974 Dan Curtis TV series, 2020’s The Turning (not a fan), and the superior 2020 series The Haunting of Bly Manor written by Mike Flanagan. The latter was quite good, and had a killer version of the song “Willow Wally.” But for me, no series and not even the novella can touch the '61 film.
But speaking of Mike Flanagan, while I really enjoyed his two Haunting shows, and Doctor Sleep and even Hush for what it was, I think his real masterpiece of The Fall of the House of Usher (2023).
I finally watched it this year and I highly recommend it! It really is the best Poe adaptation I’ve seen, and while I’ve read and taught and enjoyed many of Poe’s short stories and poems, this show really managed to feel modern and fresh, while also paying lavish fan service to those who know Poe. Mark Hamill is fantastic–the whole cast was great, the writing was timely, I just can’t recommend it enough!
I also rewatched the great Vincent Price in The Pit and the Pendulum from the 1961, which really I find sort of “mid.”
Finally, I watched (for the first time) The Black Castle from 1952, which features Boris Karloff in a supporting role. I didn’t have high expectations for such a late Universal Gothic, especially one that mitigates Karloff’s role (and totally mitigates Lon Chaney, Jr.).
But this one was really cool! I found it to be a fun literary mashup, like the guy writing the screenplay just stole so many interesting plots and cobbled them together.
It is 30% Poe’s “The Premature Burial,” 50% “The Most Dangerous Game” 10% “Romeo and Juliet” 10% “Three Musketeers.”
The sets look great a times–the game room for instance–and the alligator pit (that one just has in one’s dungeon) is impressively done. Fans of the Gothic should not miss it!
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I think both of these are really great films. Captain Clegg is always worth it for Cushing and Michael Ripper alone. I think Hammer’s other pirate films are ok, but their blend of swashbuckle and horror worked best for me. I like it quite a bit more than Disney’s miniseries The Scarecow of Romney Marsh.
Terence Fisher’s The Phantom of the Opera is probably my favorite iteration of the story, followed by the Hammerstein one from the 2000s. I only wish the Phantom got one vengeful act in at the end… I simply disagree with Fisher that we’d lose sympathy for him as a tragic antihero–he feels a bit toothless in the end. But as usual, Hammer’s set design gets an A+. I love the subterranean layer!
How’d you enjoy them?
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I like both films, but - then again - there aren’t many, if any, ‘Hammer’ films that I don’t like. I have always loved their films.
I find that parts of ‘Phantom’ tend to drag, especially towards the end; but the set-design is gorgeous, as usual, and character actor, Michael Gough, played a very memorable boo-hiss baddie that folk love to hate.
Like yourself, I would have preferred it if Herbert Lom, as the Phantom, had committed the killings himself, rather a right-hand man, so to speak. I suppose that Hammer wanted to put a new slant on the story.
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Three more from 1949.
Knock on Any Door (Ray / 7/10)
Tokyo Joe (Heisler / 6/10)
The Undercover Man (Lewis / 6/10)
Undercover Man is misleading as no one goes undercover in this one. It’s really a kind of retelling of the Elliott Ness / Al Capone story with the heroes being tax officials chasing down evidence to bring down “the big fella”. Tokyo Joe is an interesting American look at post war Japan and it’s criminal underbelly. But the pick of the bunch is Knock on Any Door. A sometimes preachy social drama with a nice twist at the end and good performances all round.
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An excellent 1990 ‘gangster’ film from the Coen Brothers…featuring top-notch performances from Albert Finney, Gabriel Byrne, and John Turturro…
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More from 1949. This time a bunch of classic (and not so classic) British comedies from that year.
Whisky Galore! (MacKendrick / 8/10)
Passport to Pimlico (Cornelius /8/10)
Kind Hearts & Coronets (Hamer / 8/10)
Vote for Huggett (Annakin / 5/10)
The Huggetts Abroad (Annakin / 4/10)
Amazing that 3 of the very best Ealing comedies were all released in the same year and that after all this time they still stand up so well. The Huggett films on the other hand were becoming an exercise in diminishing returns and within a few years had become a radio series instead, albeit a very popular one.
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It was time for a rewatch.
It’s a shame many scenes was cut out by the production company. I wonder if those scenes are forever lost?
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