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Favorite Comedy Performance of the 1930s by a Star Actress
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Favorite Hitchcock Leading Lady of the 1950s
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Top of the User Polls: 1920s
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Hollywood-in-the-Title Movies from 1929-1939
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Clark Gable's Best Match
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Glenn Close and the Oscar
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Favorite Hitchcock Leading Lady of the 1940s
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Reviews
The Tiger Makes Out (1967)
Eli Wallach and Anne Jackson
THE TIGER MAKES OUT is an urban black comedy by Murray Schisgal that stars Eli Wallach as an alienated US mailman who life is in the toilet. He tries to kidnap a young woman to get back at an uncaring society but snags instead, a "middle-aged" suburban housewife (Anne Jackson), who has come into the city to try to finish her baccalaureate degree. In his basement apartment, they find they have much in common and suffer from the same urban malaise and dislike of modern society.
Sterling performances by Wallach and Jackson and many funny bits make this a neurotic delight. There's also a terrific supporting cast of familiar "New York" actors (and others) like Rae Allen, Sudie Bond, Bob Dishy, Charles Nelson Reilly, Dustin Hoffman (film debut), Ruth White, Jack Fletcher, Elizabeth Wilson, Frances Sternhagen, Bibi Osterwalkd, Judith Lowry, etc.
I'm not sure we as a society have improved much in the 50-odd years since this film was made.
Walk a Crooked Path (1969)
School Days, School Daze
British drama about a school master (Tenniel Evans) who is unhappily married to a shrew (Faith Brook) and has just been passed over again as head of the school. While he seems philosophical about it, she is furious and dwells on how far she has fallen socially since her carefree days as the daughter of a rich man. Then, all of a sudden, a boy (Clive Endersby) accuses him of sexual assault! While the outgoing head master doubts the veracity of the story, when the wife gets wind of it she drinks herself into a fury, takes the car, and is killed in an "accident." This scandal compounds all Evans' troubles. He's consoled by a fellow teacher's wife (Patricia Haines). Creepy Endersby's much-married mother (Georgina Cookson) suddenly shows up with a baronet in tow, but instead of taking the kid out of the school, we find that he's blackmailing her over her previous escapades. We also see that old Evans is paying Endersby as well. Blackmail galore! The twist ending casts doubt on Brook's death (suicide? accident?) as well as Evans' true relationship with Endersby. Good little film with lots of twists. Co-stars include Robert Powell as a schoolboy and Georgina Simpson as the sex bomb maid.
Low-budget entry but it's quite a solid little film.
The Picasso Summer (1969)
Ruined by Animation and Violence
Good movie about a San Francisco couple (Albert Finny, Yvette Mimieux) who go to France to find Picasso. Beautiful location shooting and some humorous situations as the stars meet various locals and eccentrics in their search. Simple plot is accompanied by music by Michel Legrand.
On the down side are a long and violent sequence in which Finney seeks out a famous toreador who is friends with Picasso. There are also three long and tedious animation pieces that depict Picasso's art and themes of war, love, and the bullfight. These are done in a pulsating psychedelic style and seem interminable.
On the plus side are Finney and Mimieux. Familiar faces include Graham Stark as the postman, Georgina Cookson as the loud lady at dinner, Jim Connell as the artist at the party, and Peter Madden as the blind artist.
The final scene on the beach was filmed on Catalina Island and tacked on. The film was never released in US theaters but has been shown on television.
Sally, Irene and Mary (1925)
Star Maker
This 1925 MGM film helped make mega-stars of Constance Bennett, Joan Crawford, and William Haines. A Jazz-Age story of Broadway and three chorus girls in a show at the Dainties Theater, writer/director Edmund Goulding mines what was already a cliche in 1925 in the story of the good, the bad, and the innocent.
Bennett plays Sally, the lead chorus girl at the Dainties and the long-time girlfriend of Marcus Morton (Henry Kolker), a rich millionaire who collects chorus girls. Her cushy life is threatened when sweet young thing Mary (O'Neil) shows up as the "new girl." But she already has a boyfriend (Haines). Then there's Irene (Crawford), who dreams of a great love.
The plot follows jealous Sally trying to dump Mary and hold on to Marcus while Crawford tries to keep the peace. Jazz parties at Sally's wild apartment include loud music and lots of girls and men. Set and costume designs by Cedric Gibbons, Merrill Pye, and Erte, perfectly capture the era.
Subplot has Haines mooning over the loss of Mary to the wild life while their mothers (Kate Price, Aggie Herring --billed as Herrin) squabble. Everything is resolved by an unforeseen tragedy.
The three stars are all terrific, with Crawford getting to do her famous Charleston in the stage show. Haines is also a standout. Price and Herring are funny as the squabbling mothers, and Kolker is appropriately slimy as the cad.
The only bad news is the "special effects" in the climax, which seems pretty cheap and obvious for an MGM film.
The Sky Raiders (1931)
Aerial Drama
THE SKY RAIDERS (1931) is a low-budget filmo from Columbia that stars Lloyd Hughes as a pilot who is responsible for cracking up a transport plane. He bails for Mexico and gets involved with gangsters and eventually returns to redeem himself. Lots of aerial stuff supposedly filmed over the desert around Barstow, CA, but one airport building says it's Saugus (now Santa Clarita). Of interest to see Marceline Day in an early talkie. The film also has Wheeler Oakman as the baddie. Hughes, Day, and Oakman had all been silent film stars; none of them had much success in talkies.
No great shakes, but the aerial shots keep it interesting.
Bells Are Ringing (1960)
Plot Heavy
BELLS ARE RINGING probably seemed rather old fashioned even in 1960. The original Broadway production opened in 1957 and ran for two-and-a-half years (almost 1,000 performances). It produced hit songs like "Just in Time" and "The Party's Over," but its plot and structure come off like sketch comedy. The film stars Judy Holliday (her final film) who re-creates her Tony-winning Broadway success. Her character is based on a real-life woman named Mary Printz, who worked for a famous telephone answering service (pre-voicemail) in New York. The plot has Holliday getting involved in the lives of the customers, especially a song-writer (Dean Martin) who's having career problems after his musical partner leaves. A lame subplot has a bookie using "code" to have the phone-answering girls take and place bets on horse races. Co-stars include Jean Stapleton, Eddie Foy, Jr., Fred Clark, Ruth Storey, Frank Gorshin, Doria Avila, and hammy Dort Clark as a police detective.
What I found interesting was that so many well-known people showed up in bit parts. Elizabeth Montgomery plays a beatnik reading a book, Hal Linden plays a singer, Donna Douglas is at the party, Madge Blake is in a street scene, Len Lesser (Uncle Leo on SEINFELD is waiting for a street light, Gerry Mulligan (jazz musician) plays the blind date, Tommy Farrell (son of Glenda) is a party guest, Sammy White plays a street vendor, etc.
Ultimately, the film is too long. Subplots featuring Eddie Foy, Jr. and Frank Gorshin could easily have been trimmed.
Hollywood (2020)
Sour Grapes and Fetid Dreams
TV miniseries about post-war Hollywood is a fictional look at a group of young talents who come to tinseltown and take various paths to reach their dreams. It's an odd and off-putting mix of fictional characters and real personalities with smidges of Hollywood history tossed in here and there when the histories fit the preachy plot.
Much of the early plot revolves around the making of a film centered on Peg Entwistle, the tragic actress who died in 1932 by jumping off the Hollywoodland sign. But about halfway through, it changes from a movie about Peg to a movie about Meg, a young Black woman who comes to Hollywood and battles prejudice etc. We also get a major rehash of the story about the gas station that served as a trysting spot for sex. I forget the guy's name but he wrote a book about it. Among the real-life characters in the series are the vicious talent agent Henry Willson and a very dumb Rock Hudson. We also get glimpses of Vivien Leigh, Tallulah Bankhead, Hattie McDaniel, Anna May Wong, George Cukor, Noel Coward, and even Eleanor Roosevelt. There's also a ton of name dropping and an homage to William Haines for standing up to Hollywood (by quitting MGM).
Anyway, the plot fits today's mania for moralizing about casting couches, ageism, glass ceilings, and the place of non-Whites in movies ad nauseum. The climax is the Oscars and the plot goes poof in a bizarre awards year where the heroes and heroines sweep the Oscars (pretty much) and even beat the REAL Oscar winners of that year. Talk about revisionism.
I wasn't familiar with any of the "young" actors in this saga, but a few old pros turn in tremendous performances and give this puff piece some ballast. Patti LuPone was the wife of a studio head (Rob Reiner) who takes over after he's debilitated. Joe Mantello plays a closeted producer who keeps the studio running. Holland Taylor is a talent scout/acting coach. Dylan McDermott plays the guy who runs the gas station. Mira Sorvino plays an aging B star, and Jim Parsons (from some TV show I never watched) plays the notorious agent Henry Willson.
Morning's at Seven (1982)
Elizabeth Wilson as Aaronetta
TV movie version of the 1980 Broadway production (more or less) of Paul Osborn's play. The plot follows four aging sisters in a midwestern town. Their lives face some upheavals based on long-simmering resentments and misunderstandings and familial bickering. Two of the sisters live next door to each other with the old maid sister living with one of the married ones. The 4th sister lives down the road with her snooty ex-professor husband. There's also a 40-ish son who's bringing home his long-standing girlfriend to meet the family, an act that serves as a catalyst to much of the confusion. The action takes place on the backyards of the adjoining houses.
Acting honors, for my money, go to Elizabeth Wilson as the old maid Aaronetta, who lives with sister Cora (Teresa Wright) and her husband Ted (Maurice Copeland). Aaronetta barely keeps her jealousy hidden from her married sisters and harbors a dark secret. Cora is resentful that her sister has always lived in her house. Next door we have the rather dim Ida (Kate Reid) who's hoping her middle-aged son, Homer (Robert Moberly) will some day marry and move into the house her husband (King Donovan) built for them years ago.
When elder sister Esther (Maureen O'Sullivan) comes to visit from down the street, she announces her snooty husband (Russell Nype) has banished her from the first floor of their home. But the major problem at hand is that Donovan is having "spells" again and that Homer may be following suit since he's feeling pressure to finally marry Myrtle (Charlotte Moore).
Terrific production with most of the original cast. The play first appeared on Broadway in 1939 with Dorothy Gish in the cast.
Jerry Seinfeld: 23 Hours to Kill (2020)
Welcome Relief from Pandemic and Trump
First off, Jerry Seinfeld looks great! It's hard to believe he's 65 years old.
He starts the show off with a helicopter stunt that is pretty amazing, though it has little to do with his set.
His hour on stage is what he's always done: observational humor. If you don't like it, don't watch it. He's not a prop comic. He doesn't really do characters. He won't break out a banjo and sing a song. Yes, he moves around a lot but that's because he's in a big theater, not a cozy night spot.
He sticks to what he knows best, which is everyday annoyances, life, and family. There's nothing political (thank god!) and his language is pretty clean. And that's just fine.
If you expect something else, don't bother. Jerry is Jerry. Always has been. Always will be. And that's just nice and good!
All the Light in the Sky (2012)
Talk About Boring
Jane Adams stars in this boring look at an actress who lives in a dumpy condo with a great ocean view. That's about it. She has a niece come to visit and she talks to a couple guys.
She sits around the condo, goes out on a paddle board, drives around, and she talks and talks and talks, mostly about herself. There's also a truly boring guy who lectures on the pieces and parts of solar collectors and atmospheric testing equipment.
She and her group always seem to be drunk or high. Incredibly boring film with nice shots of the ocean.
The Wanderer (1925)
William Collier, Jr. Is Excellent
THE WANDERER survives in a 63-minute abridgement, down form its original 9-reels, which would have been more than 90 minutes. It's the story of a biblical-era country boy named Jether (William Collier, Jr.,) who goes off to an unnamed city and gets pulled into the high life with Tisha, High Priestess of Ishtar, played by Greta Nissen in an early Hollywood appearance (maybe her first). She's protected by by crooked Tola (Ernest Torrence). Long story short, Collier soon loses all his money, spending it on jewels and robes, and Tisha. He also gets sucked into crooked gambling games run by Tola. At some point Wallace Beery wanders in as Pharis (most of his part is lost) and seems to displace Collier in Tisha's bed, but he's out of money anyway. When he's caught cheating he's about to be cast out from the city when heaven intervenes and destroys it anyway. Collier survives the debacle and returns home to beg forgiveness of his parents.
This was a major Paramount release of 1925, directed by Raoul Walsh. Why it was abridged is anyone's guess. Co-stars include Tyrone Power, Sr. and Kathlyn Williams as the parents, Kathryn Hill as the girl next door, Holmes Herbert as the Prophet, Sojin and Snitz Edwards as sellers of fancy goods, and Myrna Loy (legend has it) among the dancing girls.
Nissen is appropriately over the top as the priestess, but Collier steals the show in a terrific performance as the wanderer. Production design is excellent.
The Stripper (1963)
Joanne Woodward Shines
The studio tried to cash in with a provocative title, but the film is based on William Inge's failed Broadway play A LOSS OF ROSES. Yet the trades were abuzz with casting rumors for the lead role of Lila, a broken down would-be actress traveling with a bum magic show who gets stranded in the town where she grew up. Mentioned were Eleanor Parker, Kim Novak, Natalie Wood, etc., but the role went to Joanne Woodward. The role was actually assigned to Marilyn Monroe, but she died. Anyway, Lila is taken in by kindly Mrs. Baird (Claire Trevor) who has a 19-year-old son (Richard Beymer) hanging around the house. Well it's no surprise that Lila and the boy create some sparks, especially as he has a virginal girlfriend (Carol Lynley). When the manager (Robert Weber) comes back to town to get Lila for a strip club gig, she must make the decision to stay with the kid or go with the cad.
With a bush of platinum hair piled on her head, Woodward makes for a flashy Lila, and she's a good enough actress to make Lila a person and not a caricature. Beymer and Trevor are also good. Lynley has only a few scenes. Briefly seen are fellow show folk Louis Nye and Gypsy Rose Lee.
Inge's troubled play, which takes place in the 1930s, failed on Broadway although it did win Warren Beatty a Tony nomination. The play starred Carol Haney as Lila and Shirley Booth as Mrs. Baird, but Booth dropped out during out-of-town tryouts and Betty Field opened on Broadway. The play lasted only 25 performances in 1959.
The film version was updated to present-day 1963. It also features Michael J. Pollard and Danny Lockin as Beymer's friends. Another of Inge's Kansas-set plays with the "you can't go home again" theme. The film is very underrated.
Twilight of Honor (1963)
Solid Courtroom Drama
In an unnamed city in a fictional county in New Mexico, a vicious killer (Nick Adams) is being tried for murder. The courtroom drama focuses on an ambitious prosecutor (James Gregory) and a young and inexperience defender (Richard Chamberlain).
Gregory is trying to ride the publicity surrounding the trial to a high political office, and there seem to be a lot of people willing to railroad the kid into the gas chamber. The case has several curious aspects. Adams has signed two different confessions but both of them have omitted large parts of his story. Adams also has a tramp for a wife (Joey Heatherton) who turned him in for the reward!
Into this media circus of lies and hype comes young Chamberlain who must battle the system ((including a judge who clearly favors the prosecutor). He relies on advice from a wily old lawyer (Claude Rains) who's been sidelined by ill health. Rains also has a comely daughter (Joan Blackman) who has eyes for Chamberlain.
Can the young lawyer navigate the complicated legal waters and fight the corruption to save his client?
All the actors are fine. Chamberlain (currently starring on TV as Dr. Kildare) gets the star build-up here from MGM. Rains steals all his scenes and Gregory and Adams are solid performers (Adams won an Oscar nomination). Heatherton makes her film debut here.
Cast includes Jeanette Nolan as the widow, Linda Evans as her daughter, Edgar Stehli as the judge, Arch Johnson as the bartender, Robin Raymond as Heatherton's ma, and Pat Buttram as the victim.
Much of the film is told in flashback, but the overall storyline suffers by being a tad too close to the classic Anatomy of a Murder (1959). Still worth a look.
Night Owls (1929)
Arthur Lake in Drag
Cute 2-reel silent comedy was one of Arthur Lake's last silent films before transitioning to talkies.
Plot has Lake (as Arthur, not Horace as stated in IMDb credits) and Jean (unidentified leading lady) breaking down in his jalopy after a night out. He's trying to get her back to her girls' school, where her father is already there to check up on her. The house mother (Fay Holderness) says she went out to the beauty parlor and hasn't come back!
The couple tries to get into the house but after Lake gets in he gets caught by the father and house mother, so he ducks into a dormitory and puts on a cap and nightie to disguise himself. In the 2nd reel, the father hauls the daughter away on a boat voyage to get her away from Arthur ... but he follows them.
Lots of physical humor. The ending is a funny bit as the boat leaves the harbor.
This is NOT one of Lake's "Horace in Hollywood" films as is often stated. This was his follow-up series of silent shorts for Universal after the "Horace" films had been completed.
Valley of Eagles (1951)
Jack Warner and John McCallum
This is a hugely enjoyable and surprising film. It starts out as a standard post-war spy thing with a Swedish scientist (John McCallum) inventing some thingy that turns sound to light (or whatever). It's stolen by his wife and his best friend. He ends up with the police where a copper (Jack Warner) doesn't seem terribly interested or efficient. But after a few false starts, they learn the pair of thieves is on the run with the gizmo to Finland where they plan to sell it to the Russians. McCallum and Warner take chase. And this is when the film takes off as well. The culprits have chosen to take a northern route across the frozen north, so the good guys join up with a group of reindeer herders since there are no roads. The herders will guide them across the frozen expanse of Lapland. Among the herders is the fetching Nadia Gay.
The trek is difficult. The reindeer are contrary. And they're being followed by a pack of wolves. from this point on there's one surprise after another until they get to the valley of the eagles. The ending is a tad abrupt, but it's a hell of an adventure.
Lazy Susan (2020)
If You Knew Susie
Oddball comedy/drama stars Sean Hayes as the middle-aged Susan, a lethargic slug of a woman who's on unemployment and is behind in her rent. She sits around all day long doing nothing and mooches money off her mother.
She has a dysfunctional family although she seems to be its main dysfunction. Brother is a doctors assistant and mama is a hypochondriac. Her best friend is a bit loony and together they have a flute and ukulele "band." Susan also has an old school rival, Velvet (Allison Janney), who works at the local K-Mart.
One day, a man in a truck rear ends her at a stop light, and so he becomes her boyfriend. Suddenly, Susan's life changes. Everything is fine until she discovers he is married. Susan goes back into her funk until a crisis forces her to take charge of her life and make some changes.
Hayes is excellent. He does nothing to enhance his female character. Susan is not a drag queen, but a frumpy woman in bad clothes and with bad hair. Janney is good as Velvet as is Margo Martindale as mama. Kiel Kennedy plays the brother and JIm Rash is the odious boyfriend. Matthew Broderick makes a cameo as the landlord.
Funny and touching in an odd way.
Cheer the Brave (1951)
Elsie Randolph in a Black Comedy
Neat little black comedy about a lonely man (Jack McNaughton) who marries the wrong woman.
As Rose (Vida Hope) comes out of a church crying, we assume she's at a funeral. Rather, it McNaughton's wedding to Doris (Elsie Randolph). Bystanders gossip about why on earth he married Doris, a sour widow who lives on a widow's pension. We soon find out just how big a mistake this was.
As soon as he moves into Doris' flat, she starts nagging and complaining. She hoards his earnings and lies about how she spends money and what she does while he's at work. When her mother and sister come to visit, he learns just how common Doris really is, despite her airs.
After two years of this domestic misery, there's a knock on the door that leads to a surprise (and very welcomed) ending.
Randolph and McNaughton are excellent. Cast also includes Geoffrey Keen as Bill, Marie Ault as the mother, Helen Goss as the sister, Sam Kydd as the barrow boy, Mavis Villiers as Shirley, and Violet Gould and Eileen Way as the gossipers.
The Dummy Talks (1943)
Jack Warner and Claude Hulbert
Backstage murder mystery in which the on-stage antics are far more interesting than the murder, especially the botched reveal.
It's a fascinating look at Jack Warner's Music Hall act, one that made him a big stage name in the 1920s and 30s. It's a combination of snappy patter and nonsense songs. Warner was 48 here, making his film debut. Also very good is Claude Hulbert, playing his usual character, all bewildered and bemused, and this time a cop.
There's also singer/comedienne Beryl Orde. She was famous for her impressions and she always did Martha Raye, but otherwise I can never tell who she's doing. We also get G.H. Mulcaster as an undercover cop, Manning Whiley as a creepy ventriloquist, Ian Wilson as the stage manager, Charles Carson as the magician, Hy Hazell as his assistant, Ivy Benson as the bandleader, and Evelyn Darvell as the lovely Peggy Royce, who sings a few songs.
The stage acts are mostly things we saw on Ed Sullivan's old TV shows: acrobats, knock-about dancers, spinning plates, etc. The murder mystery, alas, seems to have something to do with counterfeit money, but it seems to take a back seat to the entertainment. The creepy dummy that talks is played by Eric Mudd who is also seen in the acrobatic team of Sylvester and Nephew.
Not as good as I had hoped, but worth the effort to see Warner and Hulbert.
Make Mine a Million (1959)
Arthur Askey's Big Ballet
Arthur Askey stars as an inept make-up man who gets involved with a sort of photo-bombing of products on a British PBS-like TV network, which does not have advertisers. After the TV station fires him, he becomes national celebrity after a series of photo-bombs advertise a laundry soap called Bonko and the product's sales skyrocket. He becomes so famous, the network gives him his own show!
Askey may be a little broad in his humor for all tastes, but this is a good role for him. Others in the cast include Sidney James as the Bonko salesman, Dermot Walsh as an ad-man, Olga Lindo as the landlady, Sally Barnes as a girl friday, Bernard Cribbins as the camera guy, Bruce Seton as the police chief and some "guest stars" like Evelyn Laye, Dennis Lotis, Tommy Trinder, and a sex bomb named Sabrina.
Arthur Askey's comedy is very much in the Music Hall style, and while he was popular in his day, he never achieved the major movie success of George Formby or Norman Wisdom.
The Pale Horse (2020)
The Stench Will Linger
Butcher job on Agatha Christie story and a lackluster cast make this nearly unwatchable. The period detail also seems wrong with all that late 1960s clothes and hair.
Rufus Sewell and Rita Tushingham are the only recognizable stars in this mess. Most of the others should have stayed in acting classes a little longer. Especially awful is the woman paying Hermia.
Casting is suspect also in having Sewell married to a Black woman in 1960 London, let along a Black witch living with two white women in Much Deeping.
The whole witchy woman thing vs the usual Christie poisoning plot turns into a total muddle and makes the un-Christie ending really stupid. Oh yes, and cut the F bombs. They added absolutely nothing to the proceedings.
I did, however, like the car Sewell drives.
Robes of Sin (1924)
Gertrude Astor Steals the Film
ROBES OF SIN stars the Australian actress, Sylvia Breamer, who had been in American films since 1917. Here she plays a bored housewife married to a cop (Jack Mower) who is working in an undercover unit. When a gangster's moll (Gertrude Astor) moves in across the hall, the bored Breamer falls in with her and her boyfriend, played by Bruce Gordon. At first, Astor is amused by the housewife, but when Gordon starts to shower her with gifts and dates to a night club, Astor changes her mind and seeks revenge.
Breamer pretty much retired soon after this film (to get married) and appeared in only four more silents that were released through 1926. A 1924 review in Film Daily said that Breamer was "suitable as the wife" but gave higher marks to Jack Mower as the policeman husband and Astor as the "gilded lily."
Here's where it gets weird. An article in Exhibitor's Herald on March 201, 1926 boasted that Herman F. Jans had just completed a film titled THE ROARING FORTIES. This refers to a couple of blocks in New York's theater district. Jans went on to say that "no district in the world can compare" and that it "caters to every sort of individual and where characters of every sort reside." The writer claimed, "It was for this reason that he had a story of this section of New York prepared and made into a motion picture."
It never bothered to explain that Jans has bought ROBES OF SIN and simply retitled it and was releasing it as a new picture. Variety noted in its June 23, 1926 review that "it must have been made some time ago, for the skirts of the female players are down to the ankles, or maybe the producers are modest.' It then states that "Miss Breamer has been idle for over a year. This picture was probably made before that."
Robes of Sin is a good example of the emerging changes in America's lifestyle in the Jazz Age and the restlessness of modern housewives. The night club scenes feature some snappy dancers (although they are unbilled). The film also features William Buckley as the Banjo Kid and Lassie Lou Ahern as the baby. Ahern was one of the last surviving silent players; she died in 2018.
That's My Boy (1981)
Mollie Sugden as Ida Willis
Very funny but minor comedy series from the 80s that stars the terrific Mollie Sugden as a pushy, possessive, and very funny mother.
Odd plot has Sugden as Ida Willis, a middle-aged woman who works as a domestic. When she shows up for a new job, she discovers that the doctor she's working for (Christopher Blake) is the baby she gave up for adoption 28 years before. While this seems like an odd starting point for a comedy, it injects some tension in the relationships between mother and son and adopted mother (Clare Richards).
The snooty adoptive mother has raised the boy, named Robert, to be a proper prig. Down-to-earth Ida constantly needles the doctor, whom she named Shane after a soap opera character, to break through his pomposity, much to the delight of his sweet wife (Jennifer Lonsdale).
Lurking in the corners is Ida's shiftless brother Wilfred (Harold Goodwin) who's a thorn in her side and an embarrassment to Robert.
In the fourth season, Robert gets the chance at his own medical practice in the country, so the shows packs up and moves to a new locale. This season also brings in the marvelous Deddie Davies as the medical secretary Edith Parfitt.
The series provided another great character for the wonderful Mollie Sugden, joining Mrs. Slocombe from "Are You Being Served?" in the pantheon of unforgettable British comedy characters.
Minnie and Moskowitz (1971)
Violent and Unfunny
Minnie and Moskowitz (1971) is a John Cassavetes film that purports to be a a romantic comedy/drama about the affair between a lonely museum worker (Gena Rowlands) and a car parker (Seymour Cassel). She's in an abusive relationship with a married man (Cassavetes) and he's in a world of his own. A parade of loony and violent characters come and go in this long and probably largely improvised film. The best scene comes toward the end when the stars improbably decide to wed and gather their mothers for a dinner. Cassel's loony-but-cheerful ma is played by Katherine Cassavetes and Rowlands' ma is played by the elegant Lady Rowlands. Both mothers are in total disbelief but try to be supportive.
One of the more interesting characters is an old-maid co-worker of Rowlands who's played by Elsie Ames. Ames had co-starred in several of Buster Keaton's short films for Columbia in the early 40s.
So This Is Love (1928)
Shirley Mason and William Collier, Jr.
This early Frank Capra silent stars Shirley Mason as a deli girl who thinks she loves a swaggering boxer (Johnny Walker). He only has eyes for himself. But she is loved by a timid dressmaker (William Collier, Jr.) who works across the street and puts her face on all his dress designs. When he comes across tickets to the "boxers ball" he invites her, lending her dresses from his store so she can swank up.
At he dance, the boxer takes a shine to the gussied-up Shirley and takes her away from Collier, who he eventually ejects into the muddy streets. Of course Collier takes boxing lessons and ends up in a big match against Walker after his opponent cops outs. The ending is assured after Shirley stuffs the big dope with salami and pickles and milk and Collier goes to work on his stomach.
The stars try hard but the material is just too weak. Mason (at age 28) was very near the end of her movie career, but looks great as the gussied-up deli girl. Collier is also quite good as the hero. Walker's character is too one-note to do anything with.
Quiet Wedding (1941)
The Runaway Bride ... and Groom
QUIET WEDDING is a pleasant comedy that borders on the screwball. Margaret Lockwood and Derek Farr want a simple wedding, but the family blows it up into an event which causes friction between the loving couple. As the parade of intrusive and daffy relatives seems endless, the lovers run off to be alone but get into a slight car accident and then run afoul of the law ... and almost miss their own wedding.
Lockwood was a megastar of British cinema (she made a few Hollywood films) and is quite appealing here as the harried bride. Farr is also good as the clueless groom. The large cast includes some very familiar faces. The bride's parents are played by Marjorie Fielding and A.E. Mathews. David Tomlinson is the goofy son who brings home a daffy girlfriend (Peggy Ashcroft). There's the family friend (Athene Seyler) who helps the bride get away, and an obliging cook (Muriel George) who helps out. Bernard Miles is a hoot as the by-the-book copper. Martita Hunt plays the imperious dressmaker and Frank Cellier is the groom's businessman daddy. Others have smaller roles, with Margaret Rutherford playing a magistrate, Muriel Pavlow the teenage sister, Jean Cadell and Margaret Halstan as aunts, Margaretta Scott as the runaway sister, Roland Culver as Boofy, O.B. Clarence as the dense magistrate, Viola Lyel as the secretary, and Hay Petrie as the contrary train porter. Somewhere among the extras are Terry-Thomas and Esma Cannon.
In 1941, this film must have been a welcome respite from the war and war films.