Category: 1949
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I don’t think I’ve ever referred to a performance as delicious before. I haven’t on The Stop Button (if Google is to be believed), but I’m also pretty sure I’ve never said that phrase before. Delicious performance. Dennis Price gives a delicious performance in Kind Hearts and Coronets. He narrates almost the entire film; there’s…
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From the first scene, Mighty Joe Young is concerning. There’s a nice establishing shot of an Africa plantation, with some great matte work, then little White girl on the plantation Lora Lee Michel sees a couple African men passing with a basket. She wants what’s in the basket, so there’s a nice lengthy barter sequence…
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From the first scene, Mighty Joe Young is concerning. There’s a nice establishing shot of an Africa plantation, with some great matte work, then little white girl on the plantation Lora Lee Michel sees a couple African men passing with a basket. She wants what’s in the basket, so there’s a nice lengthy barter sequence…
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Very smart comedy about married lawyers Katharine Hepburn and Spencer Tracy. She’s the crusading progressive, he’s the assistant D.A. Usually they’re just adorable together but then Hepburn defends a wife on an attempted murder rap–the wife (a phenomenal Judy Holliday) shot her cheating husband. And of course D.A. Tracy’s the prospector; martial courtroom warfare ensues.…
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Not bad adaptation of F. Scott Fitzgerald novel makes plenty of adjustments for the Production Code and has some significant misses in the casting department, but lead Alan Ladd takes the part seriously, tries, succeeds. Unfortunately no one in the supporting cast comes anywhere near close, with both narrator Macdonald Carey and lost love Betty…
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Rather strong character study masquerading as a thriller about wealthy housewife Joan Bennett contending with a rebellious teenage daughter (Geraldine Brooks, in the film’s only weak-ish performance), the daughter’s skeezy older lover (Shepperd Strudwick), and the blackmailer who finds out about the illicit affair (James Mason)–all while getting the house ready for Christmas. Bennett’s phenomenal,…
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Outstanding period drama about unmarried heiress Olivia de Havilland’s courtship by charming but poor Montgomery Clift and the repercussions for de Havilland’s relationship with her father, Ralph Richardson. Small story grandly told; Ruth and Augustus Goetz adapted their own play (which was adapted from Henry James’s Washington Square). Fantastic performances from everyone involved, stellar direction…
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It’s about fifteen minutes before lead (and director) Jacques Tati appears in Jour de fête. The film opens with a travelling fair arriving at its destination and starting to set up. Paul Frankeur and Guy Decomble are the two main fair workers–actually they’re the only fair workers with anything to do except Santa Relli as…
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Batman and Robin is fifteen chapters; all together, it’s just under four and a half hours. It is not a rewarding four and a half hours. Not at all. Of the fourteen credited actors, one gives a good performance. Don C. Harvey. He gets to be chief henchman for a while. But not even half…
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For a few minutes in Batman Victorious, which is mostly a chase sequence–the invisible (though only temporarily) Wizard is on the run from Batman and the cops. There are some questionable (but more ambitious than anything else in the serial) invisible man special effects and a more lively feel to things. Or maybe it just…
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Okay, I’m not wrong–wheelchair-bound, ornery scientist William Fawcett really does just walk around in front of everyone and no one reacts. He’s been zapping himself with electricity to regain use of his legs, making him a suspect for being masked, supercriminal the Wizard. Except only to the audience because no one knows he can walk.…
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If the Wizard has any challenge in The Wizard’s Challenge!, it’s outsmarting Batman and Robin. It doesn’t take much as it turns out. Especially not with Robin (Johnny Duncan) playing with a toy truck when he’s supposed to be on guard duty. See, the Wizard has stolen all the scientific equipment he needs to unleash…
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The chapter title, Robin Rides the Wind, got me hoping Robin would jump out of a plane or something. Without a chute. Sad spoiler: he doesn’t. The chapter does clear one of the Wizard suspects, which would probably be more effective if the character–played by Michael Whalen–appeared more often. He doesn’t appear often. He appears…
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So when Robin (Johnny Duncan) is alone in the Batcave, he doesn’t use the changing room. He puts on his tights in the public area. Off-screen, sure, but Robin’s Ruse confirms it. The titular Ruse isn’t particularly exciting. It’s fairly predictable, especially after the cliffhanger reveal at the beginning, with one adequate surprise. But for…
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The chapter title, Batman’s Last Chance!, must refer to Batman’s last chance to run around in this particular drab office building. I don’t think it’s supposed to be the same one they used earlier, but it definitely appears to be the same set. The last third–maybe less but it feels like a third–of the chapter…
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There’s some family drama for Jane Adams this chapter of Batman and Robin, as George Offerman Jr. returns to provide the main story for The Wizard Strikes Back! Otherwise, it’s just Robert Lowery and Johnny Duncan goofing off and being lousy superheroes. Besides watching Lowery’s Batman cape flail as he tries to flag down a…
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Robin Meets the Wizard! does indeed feature Johnny Duncan’s Robin meeting the Wizard. The masked, unknown (undoubtedly until the last chapter) Wizard knocks Duncan out while Duncan’s on lookout. More like the boy blunder. Wokka wokka. Other than the chapter title actually referring to an event in the chapter, there’s nothing distinctive about this one.…
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Shockingly, there is actually a blast in The Fatal Blast. Sadly it seems unlikely to be fatal enough, as there are eight more chapters to go. Not even halfway through Batman and Robin. After the cliffhanger resolution, which is yet another boring one, everyone thinks–as always–Batman and Robin are dead. Even butler Alfred (Eric Wilton),…
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Sadly, Johnny Duncan’s Robin is not actually a target in Target – Robin!. The chapter wouldn’t be any more compelling if he were, but it get Batman and Robin moving in a new direction. Instead, it’s more of the same. Tepid cliffhanger resolution, bad acting from Robert Lowery and Duncan, some more costumed adventuring, a…
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Once again, the chapter title doesn’t have much to do with the chapter. Robin Rescues Batman. Okay, sure. If you count Robin (Johnny Duncan) hiding until the bad guys leave with the stolen formula then going in and checking on an unconscious Batman (Robert Lowery). The bad guys have this extended escape sequence–Batman and Robin’s…
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Most of this chapter, Batman Trapped, is a resolution of the previous chapter’s cliffhanger. There’s no trapped Batman in this chapter. There’s kidnapped Robin; more on that development in a bit. After the immediate resolution of the cliffhanger–thanks to Batman (Robert Lowery) having a lot of tree climbing skill–the bad guys decided they’re going to…
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I actually can’t figure out why this chapter is called Robin’s Wild Ride. Robin (Johnny Duncan) does not have a wild ride. Unless they mean when he gets to drive the car for a bit at the beginning. The chapter’s cliffhanger resolution is pretty tepid, but Batman and Robin clearly isn’t trying for thrilling cliffhangers,…
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Even with Robert Lowery’s exceptionally questionable performance as Batman and Bruce Wayne, Tunnel of Terror is a relatively fine serial chapter. The cliffhanger resolution at the beginning is pretty weak, but then it turns out Lowery and Johnny Duncan have an almost superpower–they can sneak around really, really quietly. And not just indoors. They can…
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Batman and Robin gets off to a surprisingly reasonable start, even after a spectacularly absurd opening montage sequence. Gotham City is facing an unexplained crime wave; the footage they start with is a dairy hold-up. Then there are some clips from the previous Batman serial, which might be why the chapter, Batman Takes Over, impresses…
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King of the Rocket Men isn’t a long serial. It’s only twelve chapters and almost one of them is a recap of the first three chapters. The final chapter spends most of its time setting up a big showdown, with the grand action finale–at least the grand action finale not recycling disaster footage from another,…
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The Wave of Disaster does have some great special effects for Rocket Men’s finale. Sure, they’re from an earlier film, but they’re still great. The Rocket Man effects are fine too, they’re just boring. After yet another tepid cliffhanger resolution–maybe the first to directly contradict the previous chapter’s version of it–and Tristram Coffin letting the…
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About halfway through the chapter–the penultimate Rocket Men chapter–Tristram Coffin and Mae Clarke go over a cliff in a car into a lake. They’ve already gone over a cliff together as a cliffhanger. And Coffin forced a motorcycle driver to his death over the cliff into a lake. It really felt like The Secret of…
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The Deadly Fog is a clip chapter. Sadly, the fog doesn’t refer to the misting effect when Deadly goes into flashback to the moments from the first three chapters. After another lackluster cliffhanger resolution, Tristram Coffin ignores the weapon of mass destruction in a nearby car–he really doesn’t sweat his invention being captured by the…
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Ten Seconds to Live is a new low as far as Rocket Men quality goes. It’s bad to the point the badness becomes more engaging than the story, partially because there’s no story, mostly because the good guys are just so dumb. The cliffhanger resolution is bad. The subsequent setup for the chapter–Tristram Coffin arguing…
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Maybe I missed Tristram Coffin revealing his Rocket Man identity to Mae Clarke and House Peters Jr. Or maybe they just don’t question only Rocket Man ever coming to their rescue after Coffin has put them in danger. This chapter is a mild improvement over the previous one, though the cliffhanger resolutions are getting incredibly…
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