Stella Dallas 1937 This is one of those mother-daughter tearjerkers that I always seem to hate. I will cry at the end of Star Wars but I always watch movies like this with a stony face. Just wait until we get to the Terms of Endearment post!
Barbara Stanwyck won an Oscar for her performance in this film and it is well deserved; she is absolutely phenomenal. Throughout the film, Stanwyck gets older and frumpier. I always admire actresses who allow themselves to look ugly on screen. I think the plot is just...meh. A woman has to make the ultimate sacrifice for her daughter so her daughter can have shallow opportunities.
This is a movie worth seeing because of the amazing acting but not much else. Unless you are into the sappy, female bonding movies, in which case, rent Beaches instead.
RATING: ***--
Interesting Facts:
Ruth Chatterton turned down the role of Stella because she had just played such a bad wife in Dodsworth.
Became a radio serial in October of 1937 because of its immense popularity.
The Crowd 1928 Yay! King Vidor is back! It is nice to see a familar face and I liked The Big Parade more than most of the other silent films we watched. This was actually a pretty good movie, and if I am saying that a silent film is good then you know it is seeing how I have bitched about the majority of the silent movies so far.
This movie is about an ordinary guy named Sims and how he sets out to live in New York. He then proceeds to live a fairly ordinary life (though it is marked with tragedy). The point of the story is that we are all just faces in a crowd.
I really liked this film. It was well-acted and Vidor did an excellent job with the camera (particularly when they were all going down the slide). Some parts stretched on a bit long like when Sims threatened to leave his wife and the camera stayed on her for like four minutes. Other than that, great film and one that made me think.
RATING: ***--
Interesting Facts:
This was the first American film that had a toilet in it. Pretty racy! Some people think it was the first movie ever to have a toilet but so many films have been lost that people can only guess.
Sorry I am so weird today. For some reason, I had trouble writing this post. Because, you know, I am usually so witty...
Again, no video. You are going to have to buy this one from Amazon. Look at how cool I am for putting a link up. I am growing!
The actor, James Murray, drowned himself because he couldn't deal with the pressures of acting.
The Big Parade 1925 Finally! I am back! I apologize about the hiatus but this film took eons to get to my house. I have often found that I lack foresight and this is no exception. I ordered the movie after watching the last one (instead of looking ahead and ordering it earlier) and since I am kind of weird about lists, I couldn't move on until I saw this. As for my book blog, every summer I reread my favorite series and so I took a break from that as well. I have been updating the albums and art one fairly regularly but Brie has been out of town, so there haven't been a lot of posts lately. There is going to be another short hiatus because I am going abroad but I will try to do as much as I can before I leave. Enough about me! Let's crack on!
So my initial happiness about finally receiving this movie was a bit dampened when I saw that it was over two hours long. It is also a war movie of which I rarely enjoy (thumbs up Gone With the Wind; thumbs down Saving Private Ryan). I was actually pleasantly surprised. The story is about a rich, spoiled guy who is kind of a pansy and cannot stand up to his fiancee enough to say "but I don't want to go to war!". He ends up going to France and falling in love with a lovely French girl. Typical war tragedy ensues, and the ending is really poignant.
I will start with my complaints. The love story is a bit half-assed. They can't speak the same language so you kind of gather that it is a pretty, ahem, physical relationship. It kind of reminded me of Disney's Pocahantas although the girl didn't magically learn to speak English (maybe if she had listened to Grandmother Willow, she would have been able to). They then proceeded to make Jim's, the main character, fiancee fall in love with his brother so you didn't feel sorry for her which felt a bit lazy to me. If you get past the rather pathetic romance, however, it is a pretty good coming of age story. Some of it was fairly predictable but if it wasn't it wouldn't be a war movie!
RATING: ***--
Interesting Facts:
Highest grossing silent film of all time.
A studio electrician died on the set when he slipped and fell off a platform.
This film was immensely successful. King Vidor, the director, was entitled to 20% of the net profits. MGM found out and swindled him into selling his share. It grossed around $55 million (adjusted for inflation). Corporate windbags!
I apologize that this post was so long but it has been a long time since I did this! Good luck getting this film by the way! Now I am stuck with a secondhand video tape...groan...
