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Peyton Place: Episode #4.32 (1968)
Peyton vs. Weber
In some ways this confrontation between Lee Weber and Martin Peyton is the most shocking of all in the series. We realize that Peyton often plays God with those around him and that in Lee's case he will be avenged for Ann's murder. And Lee did indeed kill her but after Peyton hires Lee to prevent him from leaving town we see over time a change in Lee's character and Peyton's increasing realiance on him.
We suspect Peyton's true motives for this but nonetheless his immediate seizing of the opportunity to blackmail Leslie to kill Lee is very jolting. But what is most effective of all is that Lee selfless motive to rid Peyton of Leslie seals his fate. Lee's horror of being betrayed by someone he totally trusted, respected, and yet suffered abuse from is quite moving and Stephen Oliver's unforgettable performance is his finest.
Frankenstein Must Be Destroyed (1969)
One final thought...
All that could be said in praise of the film has been written but I couldn't help but wonder as to why after all the living hell poor Freddie Jones 'wife went through did he have to burn her house down as well? Now she'll go nuts.
Why couldn't he just have shot Dr. Frankenstein instead? (Preferably outside.)
La carrière de Suzanne (1963)
Ugh!
Flat, listless and trés, trés boring. The lifeless direction and script doesn't help.
Blood Simple (1984)
Consistent Sick Coen
Typically repulsive fare from his overated duo. Despite stellar performances from the male leads this septic tank story wallows in its putridness like a dog eating it's vomit.
Killer's Kiss (1955)
Dreadful
Where does one begin with this pretentious bore of a movie? A few innovative camera angles cannot make this early effort of Stanley Kubrick's long career noteworthy.
The acting is atrocious. The script lame. The silly overinflated score is more suitable to a glossy Lana Turner movie. The best thing about this turkey is revealed in the first half hour. And that would be the beefy and very sexy body of Jamie Smith for starters.
Not to mention the splendid iron masterpiece of Pennsylvania Station before it was tragically demolished in the 1960s.
Otherwise it's better forgotten. This sort of genre was mastered by the pros long before Kubrick produced this pathetic if artsy fartsy attempt.
Comet Over Broadway (1938)
More baffled by the negative reviews than any flaws in the movie.
One would admit that the production values of this film are skimpy but that's not really the essential message of this film. It's not about a woman giving up her womanhood to stand on her own. Nor about true love. It is a simple tale of one's own self worth and the ethics of life.
Kay's character in the beginning is a self centered nitwit with dreams of stardom. She forgoes any sense of propriety. She lies to her husband and visits a smarmy has been actor in his cabin. Alone. At night. Moments before he will sexually assault her-and even Kay can see this coming- her husband intrudes and in the scuffle and fight kills him. It's accidental but the court doesn't see it that way and the poor chap is carted off to prison for the rest of his life. Kay fools herself into thinking that once she becomes a star she can free her husband, come back and love him.
Off to New York she goes. With her toddling child. (Why didn't she leave her with her mother in-law?) Yes, she hates Kay. Understandably. Her flightiness caused the tragedy. After all, she would have cared for her grandchild. And the truth would have been told and the young girl could have visited her father. Yes, yes in prison. Kay would have come out the stinker but then she should have.
So, Kay goes to New York and puts the make on a theatrical producer. Because he already has a girlie she gets Kay fired. But the Broadway hotshot promises her a big break in another production. For once in her life she uses her brain and says no dice. Exit Kay.
Now, she's off to London to become a star on her own. However, her kid is a bit of a drag on her. She is way too easily convinced to leave the child with an over the hill hoofer she meets while touring the States. What conscientious mother would drop her child and be an ocean away from her? Kay would. And she does.
In London Kay at last realises her dreams. She sends for the kid. The hoofer brings her but the child regards the hoofer as her mother. Kay is pissed. But the hoofer explains the facts of the situation to Kay. As if she should need to have them explained to her. With a tear in her eye Kay sees the right of it.
It's probably here when the script Kay has been following in her quest for fame and redemption gets complicated. Her poor child goes through emotional torture on being separated from her surrogate mother to live with Kay. It's pathetic but the poor kid endures. Her surrogate/hoofer mother is devastated as well on losing the child she half-raised and will soon become a fixture in every sleazy bar in New York.
Kay's producer boyfriend has since returned though to pick up where they left off. They're so very, very happy. The child is doing better. Kay is famous. She's in love, bless her. Now she'll really feel great about herself when she can see her husband walk out of the prison he's been in for the past eight years. Thanks to her then and her money now. After that she can tell him she's never loved him and let's just leave bygones be bygones because she wants to marry another man.
But when she sees her husband life doesn't play out the way she thought. He still loves her. Unquestionably. Unconditionally. He hasn't seen his own child in years. He's rather frail. A heart condition. But he has dreams. Of an automotive shop. Of them being together as a family again. Hearing this her lifelong brain fog clears. She is his wife. His dreams are just as worthy and just as valid as her were. She realised her dream. Isn't her Broadway romance looking just a little cheap around the edges now? Kay has left nothing but a trail of tears behind her. The poor lecher that was accidentally killed, her broken hearted mother in law seeing her son go off to prison, her child's loss of her surrogate mother, the surrogate mother's loss of her child....E-Gads!
Maybe it's your turn Kay to take the bad with the good.... Certainly her daughter is willing.
By the way, Kay Francis is superb. Bette Davis would have ruined it.
Ascenseur pour l'échafaud (1958)
Tiresome
What did I miss? Film noir to me is what this film isn't. Too many subplots, too many coincidences, and too much politics.
Noir is composed of two, and two only, elemental ingredients: greed and lust.
This tedious film not only fails in this respect but the story wanders too far from the main characters incorporating two dimwits into the plot as well.
Overall the film is a bit of a bore. Annoying jazz din of the era detracts from the essential film noir mood as well.
Oh well. Jeanne Moreau made what I was able to sit through.....worth it.
The Female Animal (1958)
Sad swan song for Hedy.
Hedy Lamarr's claim to screen immortality lay mostly on her stunning beauty. As an actress, she was at times very good but only just very good. Often, she was simply a treasure for the eyes.
In this, her final film, she can no longer rest her laurels on her much faded beauty. She looks rather ordinary and her hair is totally unflattering as is her make-up. The story is the usual trashy sort of this genre but there's not much to make it bearable. George Nader shaved looks like George Nader shaved and isn't half as sexy as he could have been. Jane Powell is the best thing in this forgettable flick.
Poor Jan Sterling could have pepped this stinker up given the right screenwriter. Otherwise the movie feels like a protracted hangover.
Flaxy Martin (1949)
Atmospheric and prophetic role for Dorothy Malone.
Entertaining little film noir gem handled with skill and style. The cast make the film quite bearable along with the direction, soundtrack and lighting.
What I thought so very striking was that Dorothy Malone's character had some pretty amazing ties to her role as Constance MacKenzie in the TV series, "Peyton Place" nearly two decades later. In the series, she had a bookshop. In the film, she works in a library. In the TV series, she marries ex-con Elliot Carson and in the movie her last name is Carson. Finally, in the TV series she waits for her lover to get out of prison as she does here in the movie with her soon to be lover, Zachary Scott.
Payment on Demand (1951)
Married couple find out that they are truly strangers to each others needs.
One of Bette's worst. Cannot for the life of me understand how anyone who is a true fan of the legendary great could feel that this was one of her better movies. True, the material is not the greatest, but regardless of it her supporting cast manages to rise above the mediocre material with a special nod to fabulous Jane Cowl. Bette is simply atrocious in her simplistic, stiff, and almost self-parody of a scheming and unyielding wife. Her interpretation totally alienates her audience from her character's dilemma. In short: Why on earth would anyone want her? She's a total monster!
Please guys, enough of this code, pre-code, censor, stuff. It wasn't as restrictive as you often make it sound, as many films managed to circumvent it altogether. The way you behave one feels one was living through a Reign of Terror.... One might not be happy with the ending but it was hardly the iron-will of the censors that ordained it.....