Alessa-3 Reviews

Cuban Rebel Girls (1959)

Bad, Bad, Bad

[9 November 2001]

This film is so bad that it is a nightmare. The question is not so much what's bad about it, but rather what's good about it. Except for a very small amount of curiosity value---nothing is good about it.

The production values are the worst I have ever seen in a "professional" production. The film stock is grainy and fuzzy. The acting is horrid. Flynn looks like he died the following day, and scenery, props, forget it!!

For the small number of people who might be tempted to buy this video--don't!! It's not just mediocre, it's horrible.

State's Attorney (1932)

Interesting PreCode Drama

[17 September 1999]

Barrymore is an attorney with little fixed principles except a taste for women and booze. One night, he defends a prostitute at night court. She comes home with him, and the two live together openly. After becoming a D.A.t hough he leaves her until he suffers a crisis of conscience that comes about in an unusual way, but his resolution is more unusual still.

This is a classic Pre Code drama. The openness and acceptance of an alternative (at that time) lifestyle, and moral ambiguity mark this as a film coming from when America was going through one of its roughest times--the Great Depression--and didn't know how things will work out.

Barrymore's acting is wonderful, and this is one of his best pieces of work in the talkies. This and its unusual theme mark this as an interesting piece for the early film fan.

Stand-In (1937)

Great Send-up of the Movie Business

[12 September 1999]

This is one of the funniest films I have seen in a long time! Leslie Howard plays a rigid, naive accountant who is sent to Hollywood to look at the books of a movie studio. Blondell plays his boarding house neighbor,a movie stand-in who becomes his secretary, teacher and confidant. Humphrey Bogart has a rare comic role as a movie producer, and does extremely well in it. In fact, he has one of the funniest scenes. Thrown out of a bar because he's drunk, he and his little Scottie dog stand outside it. Bogart wears a placard saying "this cafe is unfair to me", and the dog wears a placard saying the same thing. Shirley Temple is also satirized in this film. If you love old movies, you shouldn't miss this one!

Witness for the Prosecution (1957)

Edge of Your Seat Entertainment

[4 September 1999]

This is one of the all-time great mystery movies, headed by an unusual but great cast. Marlene Dietrich plays an enigmatic character and actually has the top role--she is the witness. But Charles Laughton is a delight as the lawyer who is trying to save her husband--Tyrone Power,a drifter who has been charged with killing an elderly woman. The acting by all principals is extremely good, and so is the plotting. There is no filler here. One tip: watch it to the very, very end. The movie contains a "false" ending.