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Robskit6
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Get Your Man (1927)
Bow Jests
Thanks to the magic of film we know Clara Bow will always be better than anyone else. I enjoyed this more than I thought I would with Ms Bow doing what she does best in this charming comedy. She has perfect timing and great comic ability. She is as anyone who knows of her the only person you are interested in for the whole film. That said I think Charles (Buddy) Rogers played his part so naturally that he was maybe the perfect co-star for Clara. I must make special mention of Harvey Clark who plays the Marquis De Valens. His character is such a nice surprise in the story and gets some comic turns of his own . Harvey is just as equally spot on in his role and a lot of fun to watch. I think three of the reels in this six reel film have been lost but here is still a good hour of the story to see. As has been pointed out in other reviews there is some nitrate damage in some of the frames. This is a bit distressing to see but then there are some scenes that look practically fresh in comparison with performances that are so good they may as well have been shot yesterday and the over all effect is quite "trippy". It is for me anyway. Add this film to your list and let Clara Bow distract you and put some joy in your heart.
The Woman in Black (1989)
Old School story telling
This adaptation of Susan Hill's book made for television is not a big budget CGI fest and is all the better for it. Nigel Kneale's screen play has a delicate touch and allows us to be gently taken along as if ourselves are traveling like Mr Kidd in the train carriage and are placed in an otherwise sleepy little East coast village that has hardly acknowledged any change in a hundred years. Rather than a hammed-up Gothic caricature, this is presented in true Gothic style. We are aware of the absence of city noise, the sound of cars and trains replaced by silence broken by the cry gulls that can sound like the cry of a baby. Dark, fog shrouded days and chill, remote coastal nights. Rachel Portman's score weaves calmly but unnervingly through the sea mists accompanied by the desolate caw of raven and crow that hover over the tilted old headstones and low stone walls. The story is told at the pace of the world that was disappearing every where else at the beginning of the 20th century like a tale recounted by the fire late at night. It is a story of a young middle class man who, at ease with life and the developing new technology around him is suddenly taken out of this familiar environment and made to face the world where the curse of an evil woman still holds sway and kept watch for like sea frets and the danger of the marshes if traveling to the house that lays beyond them. This film begins by showing us an early twentieth century world that now,along with the railway has the motorcar and electric light. There is even featured an early recording device. However, out here in the house beyond the marsh, Mr Kidd knows that the rail tracks can only reach so far and the motor car is no good on the causeway, electric lights can fail. Then, like the eldritch façade of Eel Marsh House, like the devil standing upright in the day,an apparition of a woman dressed in black makes her claim and there is nothing to stand between him and the spectre that has haunted and terrified a generation. Then the darkness begins to fall. Adrian Rawlins is fine as the besieged and tormented Aurther Kidd but it is Bernard Hepton who steals this show as Mr Sam Toovey the rich businessman who befriends Arthur and becomes the steady rock amid the chaos. I believe this film is far superior to the new Daniel Radcliffe film adaption because of all the above. For me there are moments of genuine tension and one scene in particular that in-spite of my being a grown man, had my hair standing on end. We are treated here to a story being told like a tale by the campfire where, at the end of its telling, we perhaps hear something else amid the cry of the gulls and we are dared to peer through the windows of an old house in the marshes and maybe glimpse The Woman in Black. RH.
Film quote:'You're a brave lad and no mistake, but your not brave enough
.no one could be.
Poltergeist (1982)
A magic carpet ride for the senses
Some films really take you on a ghost train ride and this film does it with style. This is obviously the main reason for watching it. The other reason for watching is that it so much more than just a ghost train ride. This film is actually beautiful. From Jerry Goldsmiths wonderful score, I.L.M's SFX still looking good after thirty years and still better than some things out now. Mathew F Leonetti's photography and last but not least, the cast; especially JoBeth Williams, Craig T Nelson and Beatrice Straight. These actors prove themselves as dramatists and make us believe what we see.In my humble opinion they all do a great job of bringing the drama. For me, these are the reasons to watch this film again and again. This film brings to life the horror comic book story's I loved as a kid like Tales from the Grave and The Nightcomers. Unlike a lot of tales of the supernatural on film lately,it is not spending an hour watching a door open slightly due to perhaps an unseen presence or maybe subsidence. This is seeing the door being ripped off its hinges by a force that has dropped the veil and allowed us to glimpse the howling twisted monster that awaits us on the other side and all in Metrocolor. Rather than a remote old mansion in an over gloomy setting, we are placed within the sun-kissed California hills, in a valley under a cobalt blue sky with an ordinary family whose youngest child Carol Anne becomes the conduit for the souls of the dead propelled by a terrible evil enabling them to escape the world of the dead and break through roaring, laughing and screaming into the world of the living with CarolAnne exclaiming Their heeeeeere!!!. Craig T Nelson is just superb as Steven Freeling being the man-in-the-sketch and JoBeth Williams as the enthusiastic mother and brave matriarch is just fantastic. The whole movie has a Steven King quality and style to it with the slow build reaching to a draw dropping finale.All of it laced with humor and some scenes played for laughs which are very funny. I do believe that this is a classic film and a must see. For me,the film delivered everything I ever wanted from a story of the supernatural.If you haven't seen it yet, then get it! Then get the beers in,the chips n dips, turn down the lights and enjoy. Rob H