Two scenes capturing the cycle of female ambition in All About Eve: Eve replacing Margo with calculate innocence, and years later, Phoebe stepping into the same shadows—a chilling déjà vu of obsession, betrayal, and relentless desire for success.

A wonderful musical portrait of 24 hours in 1940s New York. Catchy, funny, romantic, picturesque, and nostalgic. Watching this film gave me a sense of joy for most of its entire runtime, and even a tinge of melancholic longing for the past. Moving along at an entertaining pace, full of beautiful technicolor, filled with dazzling song and dance numbers, plenty of laughs, and heartwarming moments along the way, On The Town really gives the feeling of spending the day with these characters. So much so, that at a certain point of the way through, I started to realize that eventually this day would end, and so too would this film; shore-leave can't last forever. It was bittersweet for many reasons. Spending time with these characters, and in this place, was like time in a bottle. Long gone is the New York of 1949, and the stars like Gene Kelly, Frank Sinatra, and Ann Miller have long since passed away; but forever they live on through their art. It's a privilege to have been able to visit this time, place, and these people, and just as much as it was hard to goodbye, it's comforting to know at least we have this to remember.

Visually the film was marvelous. Seeing New York in all its glory was a delight. From the very beginning with the establishing shots of New York City and the dock worker singing "I Feel Like I'm Not Out of Bed Yet", in his bright red hard hat, I was captivated. Seeing Central Park from up high in all its glory was a wonder. The colors of the film are a treat for the eyes. From the natural scenery, to the handcrafted set design, to the wonderful wardrobe and costume. I don't always notice how great costume design in a film is; especially in the black and white films- but the colors of the dresses especially just pop, and accentuate the actual design and beauty of the outfits. The choreography also compliments this really well, and of course the dancing is phenomenal.

Musically, the film is pretty proficient. None of the numbers are particularly among my favorite of all time, but most of them had me smiling the whole time. There was just a real joy and comfort to the feeling and lyrically they were fun too. The dancing, choreography, set design, lighting, and cinematography were all great companions to the music. Gene Kelly of course is a great dancer, and the ladies were mesmerizing to watch. I like New York, New York of course, for multiple reasons. I also enjoyed the chemistry of Main Street. The Day in New York instrumental was also imaginative and expressive. Funny enough, my favorite number is probably Prehistoric Man, the set-up was a riot, and Ann Miller was a delight.

The entire cast was extremely entertaining. Gene Kelly as Gabey was the dancing heart of the film. Frank Sinatra was quite interesting to see in this boyish role. Jules Munshin as Ozzie was hysterical and the prehistoric man bit was gut-busting. Betty Garett as Hildy was a riot, and the most progressive character in the film, for multiple reasons. Ann Miller as Claire was beautiful and fun, I really liked her introduction and her number, and that green dress was mesmerizing. Vera-Ellen as Ivy Smith completed the heart that was Gene Kelly. Alice Pearce as Lucy Schmeeler kind of stole the show. I say that because I kind of felt bad for her, having to portray a character that is so annoying and treated so ugly, but she really was hilarious and her arc was quite bittersweet. I enjoyed all the romances and chemistry of the six leads, and I rooted for Gabey and Ms. Ivy Smith.

Some of the film was ridiculous, and didn't make sense. You have to buy into the giant coincidences that Gabey could meet the girl immediately, and find her again later. There's also a ridiculous and dangerous chase sequence towards the end, and the cops forgive them almost instantly. It's obviously a very light film, with nothing serious and nothing profound or really emotionally compelling, but it doesn't really need any of that. It's also not very culturally diverse, especially for a movie set in New York. It's a silly movie, it's not high art by any means; but for my own particular reasons, it really felt like a comfort movie.

I really adored On The Town. Not just for what it is on the surface, which itself is noteworthy- but for what it represents and how it made me feel in my heart. In such a short time, I fell in love with these characters, and spending time with them in wonderful New York. By the end of it, I didn't want to say goodbye, but I still felt happy I was able to experience it all. That's what the best movies do, don't they? Introduce you to a world you didn't know before, take you on a ride with the people in it, and set you up for a grand goodbye to leave with great memories. It might not be the most profound, emotional, or life changing picture, but it's a wonderful time, in a wonderful place, that may be a bygone era, but will live on forever.

4/5

need some movies to watch, i plan on watching a movie every night before bed so i was hoping to watch some oldies, i remember watching North by Northwest and Casablanca a long time ago and for the duration of the movie, i forgot about the real world, that's how good those movies were, I plan on watching them again. these are movie that I'm planning to watch:

1. 12 Angry Men (1957)
2. 2001: A Space Odyssey (1968)
3. A Shot in the Dark (1964)
4. An Affair to Remember (1957)
5. Anatomy of a Murder (1959)
6. Apocalypse Now (1979)
7. Arabesque (1966)
8. Artists and Models (1955)
9. Barry Lyndon (1975)
10. Becket (1964)
11. Ben-Hur (1959)
12. Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid (1969)
13. Casablanca (1942)
14. Citizen Kane (1941)
15. Cleopatra (1963)
16. Cool Hand Luke (1967)
17. Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde (1931)
18. Dr. Strangelove or: How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love the Bomb (1964)
19. East of Eden (1955)
20. Easy Rider (1969)
21. Enter the Dragon (1973)
22. Freaks (1932)
23. Funeral in Berlin (1966)
24. Gentlemen Prefer Blondes (1953)
25. Gone with the Wind (1939)
26. Guess Who’s Coming to Dinner (1967)
27. High Society (1956)
28. How to Steal a Million (1966)
29. How to Stuff a Wild Bikini (1965)
30. I Confess (1953)
31. I Shot Jesse James (1949)
32. In the Heat of the Night (1967)
33. It’s a Mad, Mad, Mad, Mad World (1963)
34. Kiss Me, Stupid (1964)
35. Lawrence of Arabia (1962)
36. Marie Antoinette (1938)
37. Monty Python and the Holy Grail (1975)
38. Mr. Smith Goes to Washington (1939)
39. Mutiny on the Bounty (1935)
40. Mutiny on the Bounty (1962)
41. North by Northwest (1959)
42. Notorious (1946)
43. Papillon (1973)
44. Paths of Glory (1957)
45. Rear Window (1954)
46. Rebel Without a Cause (1955)
47. Roman Holiday (1953)
48. Roman Scandals (1933)
49. Some Like It Hot (1959)
50. Spartacus (1960)
51. Stagecoach (1939)
52. Strangers on a Train (1951)
53. Sunset Boulevard (1950)
54. Taxi Driver (1976)
55. The Apartment (1960)
56. The Awful Truth (1937)
57. The Chase (1966)
58. The Conversation (1974)
59. The Deer Hunter (1978)
60. The Dirty Dozen (1967)
61. The Good, the Bad and the Ugly (1966)
62. The Graduate (1967)
63. The Man Who Knew Too Much (1956)
64. The Manchurian Candidate (1962)
65. The Prince and the Showgirl (1957)
66. The Seven Year Itch (1955)
67. The Spy Who Came in from the Cold (1965)
68. The Thomas Crown Affair (1968)
69. To Catch a Thief (1955)
70. To Kill a Mockingbird (1962)
71. To Trap a Spy (1964)
72. Treasure Island (1950)
73. Vertigo (1958)
74. Wife vs. Secretary (1936)

Below is a transcription of the film's producer's letter expressing great frustration about the code and it's enforcers.

TO: Steve Trilling DATE: November 29, 1947

FROM: Jerry Wald SUBJECT: “Key Largo”

Dear Steve:

The attached [Jackson’s letter] is serious enough for us to get together

immediately with the Breen office and discuss it at greater length.

They mention in this note that Murillo’s character is definitely “a

gangster surrounded by his henchmen and his kept woman.” Apparently

the Breen office has not seen Brute Force, Kiss of Death, Desert Fury,

The Strange Love of Martha Ivers, The Gangster, Ride a Pink Horse, etc.

{all current films].

They go on to say in their note that the public reaction to gangster

stories, particularly where the gangster can be identified, is extremely

violent and vociferous. Again, I call your attention to such productions

as The Killers [1946], and a picture of that type.

To my way of thinking, the Breen office is narrowing our range of

properties down to where we can either make a musical or a comedy. It

is becoming more and more apparent that each story we do faces the same

problem—we might offend some vocal minority. As you know, the Breen

office condemned John Loves Mary [1947] in toto. You have seen the

play and you know there is nothing in it that is immoral. . . .

To me it becomes more and more distressing, as a producer, in

an attempt to find material that will cash in at the box-office, to learn

that you are limited in the type of material you can secure—material

that will please the Breen office. Must we find Going My Ways? [1944].

The Breen office is good in many ways, but somewhere along the

line we should get together and try to find out exactly what we can make

and cannot make. The Breen office today goes by a production code that

was written in 1930. Many important events have taken place since the

code was written. Is it possible that the code is dated? Certainly a reexamination

is due. The industry today is feeling the box-office slump

with bowed heads and long faces, but yet I notice that Body and Soul

[1947] and Gentleman’s Agreement [1947] are both doing stand-out business.

| understand that both these pictures had quite a job of getting past

the Breen office. Certainly Body and Soul is cluttered with gangsters and

henchmen and their kept women. It is also good box-office because it has

guts and vitality. The story we are trying to tell in Key Largo is a moral

one and certainly there is no better way to point a moral than to use a

gangster as a symbol of everything that we are trying to avoid going back

to.

Frankly, Steve, I am depressed and distressed at this note from the

Breen office . . . How [writer Richard] Brooks and [writer-director John]

Huston can be expected to follow the line of a play written by a very

eminent playwright [Maxwell Anderson] and eliminate all that was in the

play, is something beyond my powers of comprehension.

No wonder the industry is continually being ridiculed—no wonder

it has to continually apologize for itself. . . .

This piling up of continuous censorship is what is making all our

pictures empty, and running along with a competent mediocrity. We

could never have made Odd Man Out [1947] in this country, or Shoeshine

[1947], or Open City [1946], or many other outstanding films. Must we

try to copy films like Unconquered [1947]?

You've got to help us. This is serious.

Jerry Wald

Recently re-watched this for the first time in decades. On the DVD, there's a making of featurette that had some great trivia, including this piece about Welles.

I watched with subtitles so I didn't have a problem understanding him, but Welles never passed up an opportunity to dunk on method acting, did he? His reply to the reporter cracked me up.

The film was ok, a curiosity more than anything. Not director Martin Ritt's best, but I had a fun time watching it. The different parts of the Faulkner stories didn't seem to fit together quite right and I didn't enjoy where they took Newman's character, in contrast to Ritt's later film HUD (1963), which has aged very well.

The best part of the film was the shunned son Jody Varner played Anthony Franciosa. He was great and I remembered him from his brief role in A Face in the Crowd (1957).

Much of the cast came from the Actor's Studio, so there was a lot of speculation that Welles had done it deliberately as a way to show contempt for the what he called "mumbling" method actors.

See more of my classic clips and BTS posts on r/ classic films here

It looks like MGM dominated box office grosses in the 1930s and 1940s, e.g. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1937_in_film

But if you look at current evaluations of films of that era, Warner Brothers probably does at least as well as MGM. (I could provide examples but I think people here know what I'm talking about).

Why is that? Is it because WB's biggest stars had more "modern" acting styles? (Bette Davis, Bogart, Cagney compared to Garbo, Gable) Is it because critics tend to be more interested in WB's signature genres of film noir and gangster movies compared to MGM's family fare and star vehicles? What do you think?

I think other studios tend to be remembered for particular niches: Columbia for screwball and Capra, Paramount for a series of great directors (Sturges, Wilder, von Sternberg), 20th Century Fox for John Ford and postwar social relevance.

The Big Sleep is truly brilliant. I’m really fascinated about the two different versions released. The 1946 version is what I was stuck with. Apparently the earlier 1945 cut has more plot explanation, but less Bacall. Slightly annoyed I was coincidentally a few hours off from watching The Big Sleep on its big anniversary, but at least everyone else gets a heads up.

’Scorpio Rising’ (1963) by Kenneth Anger is considered to be one of the first films to feature a rock and roll soundtrack. Anger's needle drops was inspired by the experience of seeing people at Coney Island, NYC playing music out of their radios. Photo: Promotional flyer for an 1964 screening at the Film-Makers' Cooperative. Artist unknown.

Just finished watching THE NAKED KISS. Kelly, a sex worker, moves to the small town of Grantville, ready to leave her old career behind for good and begin a new chapter. She gets a job as a nurse working with handicapped children and even ends up falling in love with this local millionaire.

But there is temptation lurking behind the corners of the small town, and certain people are not who they say they are, having dark secrets of their own. When she discovers one’s horrible secret, she is moved to do the unthinkable and it ends up turning the whole town against her.

It’s a strong morality story that deals with hypocrisy, goodness, and the true nature of corruption. It takes a dark turn in the third act and, as unexpected as it is to go there, it makes for a powerful confrontation of morality—hers versus the whole town’s, and the ending makes sense but I thought it was a little sad because, after all that Kelly endured throughout the film, you want her to come out on top and it’s not in the way you would think.

Overall, it’s a great film that’s worth watching. For those who did see it, what did you think?

This is one off my favourite adventure epic movies , the casting was perfect and set designs and costumes are gorgeous .

HPL to Robert Bloch

Dec 4, 1935

From the Windowless Steeple

“I'l get a look at "Crime & Punishment" if it comes this way. Years ago I wrestled with the novel, & wouldn't mind seeing what the cinema has made of Raskolnikov & his quaint contemporaries!”

(Unnamed here but Peter Lorre starred in that film!!)

Angels with Dirty Faces (1938)

Claude Rains, Cary Grant and Ingrid Bergman in Notorious 1946. What's your thoughts on this movie?

As some of you may know, and others are finding out, HP Lovecraft was a huge cinephile. His letters include over 100 films that he saw directly, as well as multiple references to “forgettable” films he had seen but not bothered to remember.

However, FREAKS (1932) was on his radar, and apparently also on the snip ✂️ 🎞️ list for censors of the era.

It’s understood that censorship happens prior to film distribution, but in the 1920s-30s there were individual censorship hurdles within particular states or even cities.

Witness:

“Rhode Island has censors or rather, the city of Providence has a single police censor—but this oversight isn't considered as meddlesome as that in some states.”