Twelve minutes of prelude. Good grief. I could have taken a shower and come back before the prelude was over. LOL That situation with the parents certainly escalated fast, didn't it? It must be a really hard thing to go through back then, knowing your parent was to be executed and there was nothing you could do about it but let them be led to their death. Being as rude as Pearl was bit her in the bum when she got to town and rightfully so, she almost missed her ride and that's what she gets. lol Is that Prissy from Gone With the Wind? I swear I'd recognize her voice anywhere, I'd never heard anything like it before I watched GWTW and I've never heard anything like it since. I do believe that's her. I'm about half an hour in and I'm not very interested. Funny way to show your disdain for the piano though, by firing off a gun. Young Gregory Peck was a very dashing looking man. Woof. This Senator guy's rather racist, ain't he? Laura Belle's rather snobby about race herself but he's on some other stuff. I guess because at one time Laura Belle had a thing for Pearl's dad, I don't know. But aren't they cousins anyway? I can see who the good and bad sons are now; I couldn't immediately tell but I can now after the way Lewt accosted Pearl in her room. I think she kind of liked it though. It's a little ironic to me that Gregory Peck later played Atticus Finch, the picture of justice (to me). Vashti's just as bad as Prissy with the babbling lmao. Dice is a really cute horse and trained quite well too. Except for when he takes novice rider Pearl for the ride of her life then throws her off when he's finished. Reminds me of bad sex. LOL I can't stand the guy but Lewton's drawl is so appealing....I'd love for him to read me a bedtime story. Or put me to sleep. I don't care which one. I'm not too happy with Pearl for unwittingly pitting these brothers even further against each other by picking and choosing to spend time with both of them and step on the other's toes in the process. Jennifer Jones was gorgeous though, I'm taken aback a little every time I look at her. The preacher's a bit of a skeeze isn't he, praying over Pearl's body and soul then checking her out on the low. I'm sorry Jesse got disowned the way he did by his father; I found it rather weird that he's supposed to be a Senator, a beacon of honesty and truth, yet sides with his corrupted son and shuns the one trying to do right. I think it is very masculine to watch a man break in a horse....but very dangerous...which makes it just a little hot to me. lol Ladies, the concept of a woman trying to change a man has been around for a looong time. Let this show how it wasn't successful then, isn't successful now, and won't be successful later. The scenes with Pierce though removed my sympathy for Pearl; she isn't quite as unawares as she would like to portray. She knows the power of her feminine wiles as well as how and when to use them to her advantage. The poor man's taken with her, and most of her mind is on trying to get Lewt to pay her two cents of attention, which I'm sure won't work. At least she admitted that she doesn't love him, I'll give her that. This "Check Your Gun With the Bartender" sign is priceless--a sign o' the times for real. And this is what makes me mad--Lewt doesn't want Pearl as his wife any more than he does some other woman; he just doesn't want someone else to have her. So he shoots Pierce. Quick shot, but really--what an ass. I swear this guy must have been the blueprint for the creation of Patrick Bergen's Martin in Sleeping with the Enemy. I had to jot this line down that Lewt says to Pearl. "Anybody who was my girl is still my girl. That's the kind of guy I am, you know, loyal." This is before she throws herself, literally, at his feet and when he gets to the door he kicks her aside and leaves. What an ass!! Laura Belle is dying now and another jotworthy line came courtesy of the Senator. He said, "I kept saying to myself all through the years that I hated ya, til finally I did hate ya." Damn. LOL Even in grief, Vashti's still babbling. Hilarity. For Lewt to shoot his own brother, then send his lackey back to let Pearl know he'll be back to make sure he kills Jesse next time, it shows me that he really had no thought or love at all for his brother. I can see the wistfulness in Pearl's eyes when talking to Helen; she knows she chose the wrong brother but in doing so Jesse now has the right woman. Jennifer Jones played the 'woman on a mission' role to a T to do right by Jesse and succeeded in shooting Lewt, but melted immediately when she finally, on her deathbed, got to hear the three words she needed to hear. It was a sad but kind of sweet moment that the deathbed confession created; it allowed Pearl to die at peace and in the arms of the one that despite better judgment and the bullet in her chest, she loved. Jennifer Jones had off the wall chemistry with both brothers in very different ways, and I'm sorry the movie ended in death. It would have been nice for Pearl to get her happy ending but in a way I suppose she did. A little overdramatic in parts and that I could have done without, but overall I enjoyed this movie. Nice introduction to a younger Gregory Peck (I've seen a couple of his movies before) and great intro to Jennifer Jones.
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There's Always Tomorrow:
I wasn't aware that Barbara Stanwyck and Fred MacMurray made 4 movies together. I can already tell that the kids are probably brats and don't know how to say 'excuse me' because they're so concerned with themselves. When even your cook is too busy trying to get out of the house to pay you any mind, you are officially invisible in your own home. It's awful bold of Norma to show up at her ex-flame's home, isn't it? Anyone with eyes can see she's still carrying a torch for Cliff, but the poor man is so ignored and neglected by everyone else that he's just thrilled to have someone interested in anything he's doing. After managing to have a decent evening, what happens when he comes home? His wife says all of 15 words to him and goes back to sleep. The youngest, Frankie, is a real brat. I really don't like when she's in a scene she annoys me so much. LOL Is that bad? The oldest and middle children are the typical self-involved teens and Marion makes excuses for every imaginable reason to not spend some time with Cliff and doesn't bother to change a thing. Cliff's wants or needs come behind the children's and yet again, he's left alone. I feel bad for Cliff but he takes it all in stride, as if he's used to it by now. It spells trouble for him to run into Norma on his business trip, but whaddya know, there she is. lol Uh oh, Vinnie and his friends have decided to join Cliff on his trip and in addition to spelling trouble, I smell it now too, especially with the cancellation of his business partner's arrival. Poor Cliff, and it's not even his fault. It all looks bad when it's actually quite innocent. At least the boy's girlfriend has some sense. Vinnie is too suspicious for his own good and jumps to conclusions without knowing all. It's rather ridiculous. They don't ask for explanations, don't ask for reasons, anything. They ignore and disregard Cliff, then at the first sign of something immediately disrespect and again, disregard. They call Cliff's character into question at the first chance they get and Marion brushes him off. Cliff's growing frustration with life leads him to call Norma in the middle of the night and I can see the trouble now. This coincides with Vinnie's return home and naturally looks even worse than it is. Trouble has definitely arrived. I love how Vinnie can tell Norma his wrong impression but couldn't tell his own father. SMH Kudos to Norma for giving these fools a what-for about themselves instead of coddling them. Norma said this line in the movie that sticks with me, both for personal reasons and because the line is too accurate for its own good. She told Cliff's kids, "You don't give love, you only know how to take it." Cliff loved the idea of Norma and that she paid attention to him, but underneath it all he really wanted that same attention from his own family and she saw that. I can't say this ending was terribly happy, but it's what had to happen. I like Barbara Stanwyck and Fred MacMurray together and their chemistry is again what made the movie for me.
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Guess Who's Coming to Dinner:
This movie is one of my mom's and my uncle's favorites, so I was looking forward to enjoying this TNT with them. My uncle watches more TCM movies than my mom, but neither of them watch as many as I do so it isn't often that I get to share my love for these movies with them. The irony of it all is that we ended up missing the movie, actually LOL, but I got to record most of it on DVR. Anyway, I really liked this movie mainly because of Spencer Tracy. The first two movies I saw him in were this one and It's a Mad, Mad, Mad, Mad World so even though I knew he was more famous for his serious work, I enjoyed him more in things like this. I like that they tackled the still-controversial (in some circles) topic of interracial relationships and managed to do it cleverly as well. It always makes me sad to remember that this was Spencer Tracy's final film, but one hell of a final film it was. I had never gotten the chance to see him and Katharine Hepburn together in a film, in fact had never seen one of Hepburn's films at all so this was a first in two ways for me. They kind of reminded me of an older Bacall and Bogart. I think this was a stellar cast and they played off of each other wonderfully. Actually, let me think. I think Guess Who's Coming to Dinner was my first time watching Sidney Poitier as well, because my mom was watching this one day and I wanted to know what it was about. So to revise my earlier statement, this movie was a first for me on several levels. That's vague enough to pass if I cover yet another first that I discover about this movie later. LOL I wish I'd been able to catch it from the beginning which is why I didn't take notes, but I thought it was a great movie.
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Safety Last!:
Because this film is silent, it was really cool for it to begin on the twist that it did. I love the clumsy mistakes and the quickened playback, it always cracks me up. Crazy how rent for two weeks was $14 and was considered expensive a hundred years ago. The way they hide from the landlady is a riot. I had to rewind it and watch it again. LOL How she couldn't make out human forms simply because they were on a coatrack made no sense but it was funny anyway. The lengths that The Boy went to so he could get back to work were hilarious...the poor EMT didn't know what to do with himself when the man he perceived to be dead suddenly yelled in his ear. The Boy's priorities are so off, giving up an entire week's pay for a chain when the rent is due at the same time. Not exactly the sharpest knife in the drawer, but you can't say he doesn't love his lady. Rather predictably, she decides she can no longer be without him and comes to see him, thinking him to be more important at his company than he really is, and it looks like it might end up getting him fired instead. He could have at least told his co-workers so they could have played along with him. That's what I would have done if I was that intent on putting up a front. lol I just love silents and this one definitely didn't disappoint or lack in excitement or intrigue despite the lack of words. People don't give silents quite the respect and time that they should; I know it's going to sound crazy considering it's a film but people today rely a little too much on the dialogue to make the film. Silents prove that you don't necessarily need that dialogue to still enjoy a movie and absorb the main message. It takes work to make a movie anyway, but it is especially hard when you don't have tone inflection and pages of dialogue to keep the viewers interested. I think silent actors had to work twice as hard to get us viewers to understand, and while some of the dialogue is written out, it's not the same as hearing them say it but I didn't really need that while I was watching this film. The actors did a wonderful job of making me feel I was not missing out on anything due to the lack of voices. This was a really cute movie and I would watch it again.
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Back from Eternity:
This movie made me sad. I read a little about the events of the movie before watching it so I could do the TNT Preview on it and I was already aware that the movie didn't end happily, but I kind of hoped I would be wrong. The last 5 minutes or so of the movie were probably the worst for me because I knew what was going to happen and just wondered how the filmmakers would carry it out. Thankfully it wasn't shown on film and I guess in a way, there was a happy ending for the others that were stranded. It kind of reminds me of Lord of the Flies with the whole stuck on a deserted island and running from cannibals bit. I probably won't watch it again, if you want the truth. It just wasn't my thing and I had a hard time staying interested. You can completely see that if you look back through this post and my notes on each film, I have notes and commentary throughout all of the movies this month except for this one. I just didn't like it. So I didn't take any.
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