This one has it all: A snappy script by Ben Hecht and Herman Manckiewitz, dazzling banter between two never-together-before stars, private dicks (1930s style), old-school theatricals, a madcap beauty paired with a hardboiled young cynic, plot twists and goofy characters--all adding up to a most entertaining time capsule of a vintage romcom. James Stewart plays the cynic, telegraphing the expected amount of dimwitted charm. Claudette Colbert is the madcap beauty, a role she mastered in many a film of the day. Guy Kibbe, Ernest Truex, and other great old character actors fill in this nutty little gem. If you're in the mood for a trip to the past, catch this one next time it comes around. You won't be sorry.
Reviews
11 Reviews
Barrymore
(2011)
One Great Actor to Another
5 July 2015
In BARRYMORE, Christopher Plummer, one of the greatest stage actors living, essays the role of John Barrymore, one of the greatest stage actors of a previous generation. Delicious, I thought. I can't miss this.
I've been a fan of Plummer forever, seeing him in minor films and minor roles in major films, and always wishing to see more of him. I'm also a fan of Ethel, Lionel, and John Barrymore, and have read a great deal about their lives. I read Plummer's memoir a few years back and enjoyed it immensely just to learn of the verve with which he approaches life, however alcohol-induced that verve may be; and also to read the tidbits about famous actors he has known and worked with.
The movie should be of interest to fans of old-school theater, but I suspect it will leave most audiences cold, or at least more than a little confused. Plummer is excellent--squeezing the juice out of every second he is on stage--but I was never convinced he was John Barrymore, even though he was telling me stories as if he was. I never heard how much young John hated his father, and somehow I cannot quite believe it. He saw the man's descent into hell through syphilis and was probably too young to understand or forgive it, but I never read that he was the one walking the old drunk into whorehouses. It may have happened, and it would have been traumatic, but I hadn't heard that one. I'm certain he would have treasured memories of his mother as he was 11 when she died, but in this play he says he hardly remembers her. It has often been stated how devoted he was to his grandmother, Mrs. Drew, until the day she died. This play doesn't capture that, but maybe I'm asking too much. To be as complex and confounding as John Barrymore was, one could not have had good memories of childhood, could one?
John Barrymore was indeed a garrulous drunk, and probably a fiercely angry one, which we didn't see. Somehow there were too many digressions to silly songs like "I Got a Gal in Kalamazoo," and "When the Midnight Choo-Choo Leaves for Alabam", getting in the way of the picture of the classical actor we know he was. One silly song, I could have accepted, but two is one too many. The real John Barrymore did refer to his marriages as bus accidents, and his grandmother did call him her little Greengoose. She also is known to have said she loved him so much because he was "a bad boy--like my husband." The script is interesting, but it doesn't quite capture the bad boy, or the madness, or the self-loathing that caused Barrymore's retreat into the bottle. And Plummer is missing the main tool Barrymore had in his actor's bag of tricks--his magnificent, multidimensional voice. I was aware every moment that I was hearing Christopher Plummer relating Jack Barrymore stories, and it only made me want to find a DVD of a movie with John Barrymore.
I've been a fan of Plummer forever, seeing him in minor films and minor roles in major films, and always wishing to see more of him. I'm also a fan of Ethel, Lionel, and John Barrymore, and have read a great deal about their lives. I read Plummer's memoir a few years back and enjoyed it immensely just to learn of the verve with which he approaches life, however alcohol-induced that verve may be; and also to read the tidbits about famous actors he has known and worked with.
The movie should be of interest to fans of old-school theater, but I suspect it will leave most audiences cold, or at least more than a little confused. Plummer is excellent--squeezing the juice out of every second he is on stage--but I was never convinced he was John Barrymore, even though he was telling me stories as if he was. I never heard how much young John hated his father, and somehow I cannot quite believe it. He saw the man's descent into hell through syphilis and was probably too young to understand or forgive it, but I never read that he was the one walking the old drunk into whorehouses. It may have happened, and it would have been traumatic, but I hadn't heard that one. I'm certain he would have treasured memories of his mother as he was 11 when she died, but in this play he says he hardly remembers her. It has often been stated how devoted he was to his grandmother, Mrs. Drew, until the day she died. This play doesn't capture that, but maybe I'm asking too much. To be as complex and confounding as John Barrymore was, one could not have had good memories of childhood, could one?
John Barrymore was indeed a garrulous drunk, and probably a fiercely angry one, which we didn't see. Somehow there were too many digressions to silly songs like "I Got a Gal in Kalamazoo," and "When the Midnight Choo-Choo Leaves for Alabam", getting in the way of the picture of the classical actor we know he was. One silly song, I could have accepted, but two is one too many. The real John Barrymore did refer to his marriages as bus accidents, and his grandmother did call him her little Greengoose. She also is known to have said she loved him so much because he was "a bad boy--like my husband." The script is interesting, but it doesn't quite capture the bad boy, or the madness, or the self-loathing that caused Barrymore's retreat into the bottle. And Plummer is missing the main tool Barrymore had in his actor's bag of tricks--his magnificent, multidimensional voice. I was aware every moment that I was hearing Christopher Plummer relating Jack Barrymore stories, and it only made me want to find a DVD of a movie with John Barrymore.
Remember the Night
(1939)
An Overlooked Christmas Sparkler
5 December 2014
REMEMBER THE NIGHT is one of my favorite Christmas movies, and maybe one of my favorite movies of any genre. The characters, quirky and sympathetic, endowed by writer Preston Sturges with his own unique brand of offbeat wit and wiliness, ring true from the opening sequence to the wrenching last scene.
Barbara Stanwyck is at the peak of her beauty, but here she plays a hardboiled shoplifter, cynical and icy. Her foil is the savvy D.A., played by Fred MacMurray at his most beguiling best. We learn early on that, although working the tough New York streets, they are both from Indiana, giving them the corn-fed, all-American heartland background, and making them somehow, in spite of being on the opposite sides of the law, perfectly right for each other.
A road trip to Indiana (with "Back Home in Indiana" woven into the sound track) brings them to Barbara's home, where Fred intends to drop her off for a Christmas visit. What ensues is one of the most effectively chilling scenes I've ever seen in a movie--a convincing picture of a mother with a hard heart and the total devastation of her daughter as a result. Stanwyck melts before our eyes. The brief performance of Georgia Caine, an actress unknown to me before this film, is one of the subtlest yet most powerful I've ever seen.
The bleak atmosphere is soon contrasted with the genuine warmth and tenderness--and Christmas spirit--of the home Fred grew up in. Beulah Bondi, Elizabeth Patterson, and Sterling Holloway create a totally convincing family, and Barbara's reaction to them, reflected in the sparkle in her eyes that seems to come from nowhere, is a hallmark of great film acting. I'm a sucker for families singing around the piano, and this scene is one of the most touching in any holiday movie. Sterling Holloway suddenly volunteers that he can "sing 'The End of a Perfect Day'" and Bondi retorts, "So can everybody," but soon he is singing it with full conviction and Stanwyck is accompanying him at the piano.
This is a complex little movie, full of lights and shadows, and ending on a slightly unsatisfying dark note. But you leave it pondering exactly what will happen next, and you can't help but think it will all work out well somehow. You have met some complete human beings, of another time and place, and they have stolen your heart.
Barbara Stanwyck is at the peak of her beauty, but here she plays a hardboiled shoplifter, cynical and icy. Her foil is the savvy D.A., played by Fred MacMurray at his most beguiling best. We learn early on that, although working the tough New York streets, they are both from Indiana, giving them the corn-fed, all-American heartland background, and making them somehow, in spite of being on the opposite sides of the law, perfectly right for each other.
A road trip to Indiana (with "Back Home in Indiana" woven into the sound track) brings them to Barbara's home, where Fred intends to drop her off for a Christmas visit. What ensues is one of the most effectively chilling scenes I've ever seen in a movie--a convincing picture of a mother with a hard heart and the total devastation of her daughter as a result. Stanwyck melts before our eyes. The brief performance of Georgia Caine, an actress unknown to me before this film, is one of the subtlest yet most powerful I've ever seen.
The bleak atmosphere is soon contrasted with the genuine warmth and tenderness--and Christmas spirit--of the home Fred grew up in. Beulah Bondi, Elizabeth Patterson, and Sterling Holloway create a totally convincing family, and Barbara's reaction to them, reflected in the sparkle in her eyes that seems to come from nowhere, is a hallmark of great film acting. I'm a sucker for families singing around the piano, and this scene is one of the most touching in any holiday movie. Sterling Holloway suddenly volunteers that he can "sing 'The End of a Perfect Day'" and Bondi retorts, "So can everybody," but soon he is singing it with full conviction and Stanwyck is accompanying him at the piano.
This is a complex little movie, full of lights and shadows, and ending on a slightly unsatisfying dark note. But you leave it pondering exactly what will happen next, and you can't help but think it will all work out well somehow. You have met some complete human beings, of another time and place, and they have stolen your heart.
The Road
(1954)
The Road of Lost Hopes
31 October 2014
I never knew a movie could be a masterpiece until I saw La Strada in 1960, as a sheltered 20-year-old with a new husband and a plan for a life in the theater. Giulietta Masini, Anthony Quinn, and Richard Basehart showed me what acting really was. At the same time I was transported to a time and place in which one was in the company of destiny—joining three apparent losers on the road of life, without means or even hope. Yet they are in a circus. Zampano is brutish strong man, Gelsomina his assistant, and the acrobat and beguiling clown (Basehart) zigs and zags through the scenes making mischief as he performs his high-wire act. They are jostled against each other, reacting and avoiding, needing and rejecting. The road they face is harsh. The landscape of Italy has been strafed by war; their life is as black and white as the film of it.
First, and central to all, is the girl, Gelsomina. I identified with her totally. Masini's naïf was the kind of character I had always thought of myself as—like Leslie Caron in Lili and The Glass Slipper, but this film towered above such Hollywood creations. Masini and her mentor, her husband and director of the film Federico Fellini, filled the character of Gelsomina out with a rough authenticity born in poverty and pain. With her clumsy, lost looks, she is the essence of a sweet spirit, impervious to the jolts and shocks of her own life. Growing up on a beach somewhere, a sister of hers has been sold off to an itinerant street performer whose act is based on his physical strength. The sister dies—and we never are to learn how. The strong man, Zampano, buys Gelsomina for what we learn is the equivalent of $10, to use her in his act.
We laugh at Gelsomina's attempts at performing, yet her inherent charm and tenderness win us over as well as the crowds who gather to see Zampano's rather unpleasant self-aggrandizing turn. Wherever she is, little children are amused by Gelsomina and are drawn to her as one of them. She is a grownup who is truly childlike.
I was awash with tears throughout the movie the first time I saw it. I saw Gelsomina as me, taken to about the 10th magnitude--an innocent in an untenable life, at the mercy of men who did not understand. The playful "fool" of the movie did not offer Gelsomina escape from Zampano, but he was sensitive enough to suggest a way she could learn to accept her life with the dark strongman. As it turned out, I would ultimately divorce my husband (who was in actuality more like the clown persona than the heartless Zampano), but I never forgot the movie. I was haunted on some subconscious level by its images and the raw grandeur of its theme, story, and message. I have since seen it again more than once, and it has never lost its power.
La Strada is the opposite of a love story, yet the redemption of Zampano, one of the protagonists, lies in that shred of love that Gelsomina symbolizes. If the film makes you cry, so be it. You will meet three of the most unforgettable characters in all moviedom, and you will learn from the complexity and humanity of a masterpiece created by one of the greatest artists ever to work in the medium of film.
First, and central to all, is the girl, Gelsomina. I identified with her totally. Masini's naïf was the kind of character I had always thought of myself as—like Leslie Caron in Lili and The Glass Slipper, but this film towered above such Hollywood creations. Masini and her mentor, her husband and director of the film Federico Fellini, filled the character of Gelsomina out with a rough authenticity born in poverty and pain. With her clumsy, lost looks, she is the essence of a sweet spirit, impervious to the jolts and shocks of her own life. Growing up on a beach somewhere, a sister of hers has been sold off to an itinerant street performer whose act is based on his physical strength. The sister dies—and we never are to learn how. The strong man, Zampano, buys Gelsomina for what we learn is the equivalent of $10, to use her in his act.
We laugh at Gelsomina's attempts at performing, yet her inherent charm and tenderness win us over as well as the crowds who gather to see Zampano's rather unpleasant self-aggrandizing turn. Wherever she is, little children are amused by Gelsomina and are drawn to her as one of them. She is a grownup who is truly childlike.
I was awash with tears throughout the movie the first time I saw it. I saw Gelsomina as me, taken to about the 10th magnitude--an innocent in an untenable life, at the mercy of men who did not understand. The playful "fool" of the movie did not offer Gelsomina escape from Zampano, but he was sensitive enough to suggest a way she could learn to accept her life with the dark strongman. As it turned out, I would ultimately divorce my husband (who was in actuality more like the clown persona than the heartless Zampano), but I never forgot the movie. I was haunted on some subconscious level by its images and the raw grandeur of its theme, story, and message. I have since seen it again more than once, and it has never lost its power.
La Strada is the opposite of a love story, yet the redemption of Zampano, one of the protagonists, lies in that shred of love that Gelsomina symbolizes. If the film makes you cry, so be it. You will meet three of the most unforgettable characters in all moviedom, and you will learn from the complexity and humanity of a masterpiece created by one of the greatest artists ever to work in the medium of film.
Magic in the Moonlight
(2014)
Magic Prevails
11 October 2014
Having been warned by lukewarm reviews that Woody Allen's latest, Magic in the Moonlight, was wan and unsatisfying, I took a chance and found out for myself--that it is quite the opposite. From the beginning it was magical, intriguing, transporting, and ultimately left everybody in the audience delighted. Including me.
Some critics carped that Allen has been over these themes too many times. Faith vs. the lack of it, spirit vs. reason, magic vs. humbug. I think Allen's take on these issues is evolving in a most interesting way.
One complaint about this film is that Colin Firth and Emma Stone are mismatched for a romantic comedy. Some say he's just too old (I suspect those who wrote that are male), others that the chemistry between the pair is lacking. It may have seemed so because Firth's character is resistant to falling in love, in fact, he doesn't seem to consider its possibility until irrationality takes over his skeptical mind through a magical encounter. As always, he is an extremely appealing actor, particularly in his stolid clumsiness. When he actually gets to a proposal of marriage in this, it is reminiscent of the one he bumbled through in his portrayal of Mr. Darcy all those years ago. Is that performance so long in the past that we don't recall his perfection? How he almost singlehandedly creative an avalanche of attention to not only Pride and Prejudice but all of the works of Jane Austen? He does it again here in a thoroughly captivating scene, one that provides some of the few laughs in the film. There are elements of Rex Harrison as Prof. Higgins, wrestling with the irrationality of even considering romance as redemption. He is one of the best actors of his generation.
Emma Stone, I am uneasy saying, reminded me of young Mia Farrow here. She seems frail and waif-like, but as if she is working at it, where with Farrow it was second nature. But she pulls it off and the two of them kept me on edge wondering whether or not, or if.
The scene between Firth and Eileen Atkins, playing his wise and experienced aunt, was a masterpiece of English restraint and playing of the subtext. Like a scene from Oscar Wilde--without the puns and built-in laughs--they talked around a subject until he was led to the unavoidable conclusion that she had never once mentioned.
The settings, costumes and cinematography must be mentioned. It is on a par with Vicki Cristina Barcelona for capturing the look and color of the place. As always in Allen flicks, a soupçon of sprightly love songs from the period adds atmosphere.
This is escapist fare worth watching, with thoughts to think on love, death, philosophy, and magic.
Some critics carped that Allen has been over these themes too many times. Faith vs. the lack of it, spirit vs. reason, magic vs. humbug. I think Allen's take on these issues is evolving in a most interesting way.
One complaint about this film is that Colin Firth and Emma Stone are mismatched for a romantic comedy. Some say he's just too old (I suspect those who wrote that are male), others that the chemistry between the pair is lacking. It may have seemed so because Firth's character is resistant to falling in love, in fact, he doesn't seem to consider its possibility until irrationality takes over his skeptical mind through a magical encounter. As always, he is an extremely appealing actor, particularly in his stolid clumsiness. When he actually gets to a proposal of marriage in this, it is reminiscent of the one he bumbled through in his portrayal of Mr. Darcy all those years ago. Is that performance so long in the past that we don't recall his perfection? How he almost singlehandedly creative an avalanche of attention to not only Pride and Prejudice but all of the works of Jane Austen? He does it again here in a thoroughly captivating scene, one that provides some of the few laughs in the film. There are elements of Rex Harrison as Prof. Higgins, wrestling with the irrationality of even considering romance as redemption. He is one of the best actors of his generation.
Emma Stone, I am uneasy saying, reminded me of young Mia Farrow here. She seems frail and waif-like, but as if she is working at it, where with Farrow it was second nature. But she pulls it off and the two of them kept me on edge wondering whether or not, or if.
The scene between Firth and Eileen Atkins, playing his wise and experienced aunt, was a masterpiece of English restraint and playing of the subtext. Like a scene from Oscar Wilde--without the puns and built-in laughs--they talked around a subject until he was led to the unavoidable conclusion that she had never once mentioned.
The settings, costumes and cinematography must be mentioned. It is on a par with Vicki Cristina Barcelona for capturing the look and color of the place. As always in Allen flicks, a soupçon of sprightly love songs from the period adds atmosphere.
This is escapist fare worth watching, with thoughts to think on love, death, philosophy, and magic.
Fools for Scandal
(1938)
A Charming Gem
11 August 2014
Carole Lombard was at her peak of beauty and comic technique in this lost old gem about a movie star incognito in Paris. The setup made me think briefly of Notting Hill, but the times were different--it was all about the glittering scenery, the ritzy richness, the absolutely brilliant way with witty dialogue and delicious, delicate physical comedy. The title is not inviting and doesn't have much of anything to do with the film--even if it had been called FOOD FOR SCANDAL that would have been closer to the point--but the interplay between Lombard, Ralph Bellamy, and Fernand Gravet was exquisite. The villains (or villainesses) were first-rate too, making this romp well worth a watch.
A Pinpoint in Time
6 July 2014
I went into the theater expecting a rock-n-roll documentary about a group I'd never heard of. I agree with many of the reviewers here that the film starts slowly and appears to want to convince me that this extraordinary ensemble just didn't get the break they needed. The point was pounded home time and again but, not being an big fan of rock-n-roll I felt the need of more evidence, until the story began to break about the individuals in the band and the emotional content of their work together and their lives. It was as if they all--with the exception of Chris Bell--assumed they'd get what they deserved, and too bad if that was less than it might be. Here is where the story begins to become intriguing, but the payoff is not complete.
I am the same age as the Beatles, roughly, and bought their albums and the mythology that went along with them. I admit I didn't know much more about rock-n-roll than that. If you'd ask me what the band who produced "The Letter" was I would probably have said The Monkees. In fact, the lead singer on that number was Alex Chilton, who became the central member of Big Star.
In the q-and-a after the showing of BIG STAR, the director revealed that much of the angst endured by Chris Bell had to do with homosexuality, and there is an area of silence around this facet his life when you are interviewing his family and remaining friends. The nugget of information would be crucial to the narrative of the band and explain to a degree why the film didn't fully work for me. I could tell Bell was difficult, tormented, and probably a genius--but what his demons were, and what his relationship with Chilton was, was not even hinted at. He seemed petulant and jealous that Chilton became the star of the group, but the level of disillusion, betrayal and pain didn't seem to come from anywhere.
The film made me think; it informed me of much I didn't know about the Memphis scene and rock-n-roll in the 70s, when I was off into folk and then into old-time pop music and jazz. I parted company with the mainstream but not to the degree Big Time did. Nevertheless it is interesting to learn about their path. Now that I know there is a great deal more to their story, I would love to hear that as well.
I am the same age as the Beatles, roughly, and bought their albums and the mythology that went along with them. I admit I didn't know much more about rock-n-roll than that. If you'd ask me what the band who produced "The Letter" was I would probably have said The Monkees. In fact, the lead singer on that number was Alex Chilton, who became the central member of Big Star.
In the q-and-a after the showing of BIG STAR, the director revealed that much of the angst endured by Chris Bell had to do with homosexuality, and there is an area of silence around this facet his life when you are interviewing his family and remaining friends. The nugget of information would be crucial to the narrative of the band and explain to a degree why the film didn't fully work for me. I could tell Bell was difficult, tormented, and probably a genius--but what his demons were, and what his relationship with Chilton was, was not even hinted at. He seemed petulant and jealous that Chilton became the star of the group, but the level of disillusion, betrayal and pain didn't seem to come from anywhere.
The film made me think; it informed me of much I didn't know about the Memphis scene and rock-n-roll in the 70s, when I was off into folk and then into old-time pop music and jazz. I parted company with the mainstream but not to the degree Big Time did. Nevertheless it is interesting to learn about their path. Now that I know there is a great deal more to their story, I would love to hear that as well.
No Time for Comedy
(1940)
A Forgotten Gem
4 June 2014
No Time For Comedy is one of those glittering baubles about the theatre of the 1930s. Originally staged in New York for Katherine Cornell and featuring a callow young Laurence Olivier as her earnest playwright husband who drinks too much because he's convinced he's wasting his talent writing comedy when the world is such a wretched place, it was reworked for Jimmy Stewart and Rosalind Russell, and for me the movie plays as well if not better than the play.
I was familiar with S.N. Behrman's elegant script and as I saw the film I was a bit confused. A whole new act had been added at the beginning to define the playwright as an awkward kid from Minnesota, swimming with sharks for the first time as his play is produced in New York. Jimmy Stewart was at his best, transitioning from a stammering yahoo to a gentleman drunk, and rising to the occasion to hammer out what he hopes will be a masterpiece with the help of a conniving female (Genevieve Tobin). Rosalind Russell is up to the role of the glamorous actress, the foil for the insecure playwright on the way up (and down), and Charlie Ruggles is wise and sophisticated and totally believable as the husband of the conniver and later suitor to the actress. Tobin is quite adroit, playing the conniver as a Billie Burke-type, although not quite pretty enough to convince me Stewart would leave Russell for her.
It's a very satisfying film if you like the genre, and it's always a pleasure to see Jimmy Stewart so at home in a "stagey" piece.
I was familiar with S.N. Behrman's elegant script and as I saw the film I was a bit confused. A whole new act had been added at the beginning to define the playwright as an awkward kid from Minnesota, swimming with sharks for the first time as his play is produced in New York. Jimmy Stewart was at his best, transitioning from a stammering yahoo to a gentleman drunk, and rising to the occasion to hammer out what he hopes will be a masterpiece with the help of a conniving female (Genevieve Tobin). Rosalind Russell is up to the role of the glamorous actress, the foil for the insecure playwright on the way up (and down), and Charlie Ruggles is wise and sophisticated and totally believable as the husband of the conniver and later suitor to the actress. Tobin is quite adroit, playing the conniver as a Billie Burke-type, although not quite pretty enough to convince me Stewart would leave Russell for her.
It's a very satisfying film if you like the genre, and it's always a pleasure to see Jimmy Stewart so at home in a "stagey" piece.
Act One
(1963)
A Showbiz Yarn
18 May 2014
The movie, unlike the weighty memoir upon which it was based, is a typical showbiz-in-the-1920s yarn about a young man making it big on Broadway in spite of his own insecurity and the many setbacks in the production of his first play. It is satisfying as such, with memorable performances by Jason Robards as the grumpy genius George S. Kaufman, Bert Convy as the struggling Archie Leach, and Eli Wallach as a Jed Harris-like obnoxious producer, and many other cameos of well known actors playing legendary New Yorkers of the day.
George Hamilton was too suave, too dapper, and just too damn pretty to be all that convincing as Moss Hart, but he was at his peak here, and he does a pretty good acting turn.
The story is predictable, but the movie still works, depicting a legend in an industry that loves legends about itself. There is a show playing in New York now based on the same material, and it is a huge hit. Maybe it portrays more of the poverty and the agony from which the real Moss Hart sprang, I don't know; but this movie hardly attempts to do that. Instead it gives us another fantasy of a time and place we love to think about and a life we would love to live. If you're not interested in that, this movie is not for you.
George Hamilton was too suave, too dapper, and just too damn pretty to be all that convincing as Moss Hart, but he was at his peak here, and he does a pretty good acting turn.
The story is predictable, but the movie still works, depicting a legend in an industry that loves legends about itself. There is a show playing in New York now based on the same material, and it is a huge hit. Maybe it portrays more of the poverty and the agony from which the real Moss Hart sprang, I don't know; but this movie hardly attempts to do that. Instead it gives us another fantasy of a time and place we love to think about and a life we would love to live. If you're not interested in that, this movie is not for you.
Two Weeks with Love
(1950)
A Heart-Touching Valentine to Bygone Days
23 October 2013
TWO WEEKS WITH LOVE is a rarity, a movie that sets out to capture the innocent charm of the early 20th century, and succeeds. A brave confection, built on a rather silly premise, it artfully presents the conflict in the heart of a 17-year-old girl who yearns to grow up and whose parents yearn to ignore it. Jane Powell is delightful as the adolescent who has a crush on the dashing man, and Ricardo Montalban hits just the right note of sophistication and kindness as he begins to fall for her. Debbie Reynolds is perfect as the wisecracking younger sister who knows what she wants and how to get it (and "it" is Carleton Carpenter), and two little brothers add just the touch of innocent mischief we would expect from little brothers in those days. Louis Calhern is delightful as the fumbling father, and Ann Harding is elegant and regal as always as the mother.
I don't see how anyone could interpret this as the same movie as DIRTY DANCING, except they both took place in Catskills resorts. It is truly about a loving family and how they cope with growing pains all around. The later film was no such thing, with a different set of characters and a totally different story line. It was certainly a different kind of resort as well.
I don't see how anyone could interpret this as the same movie as DIRTY DANCING, except they both took place in Catskills resorts. It is truly about a loving family and how they cope with growing pains all around. The later film was no such thing, with a different set of characters and a totally different story line. It was certainly a different kind of resort as well.
The Dead Kid
(2013)
An elegant foray into the darkness of growing up
10 September 2013
THE DEAD KID deals with the conflicts of childhood's mistakes. The protagonist knows she is complicit to wrongdoing even though she didn't do wrong, and she confesses her feelings of guilt in this touching, smart and wise little film. Deftly written with a realistic yet poetic tone, THE DEAD KID is directed with dark and vital imagery,illuminating a story that could have happened to anybody. The story deals with bullying--the kid who is innocent, bullied, yet takes it and perhaps expects it. Two girls observe the acts but do nothing to stop them, and one of them suffers for realizing that.
Watching THE DEAD KID reminds the viewer of those many omissions and slight transgressions of childhood and youth we were never punished for, except in our own hearts. Very touching, very well done. It is a remembrance and an apology for all of us.
Watching THE DEAD KID reminds the viewer of those many omissions and slight transgressions of childhood and youth we were never punished for, except in our own hearts. Very touching, very well done. It is a remembrance and an apology for all of us.
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