Yogi's Movie Consumption Blog

A criminal woman with a disfigured face is restored to beauty and (some sort of) innocence. Not too many details stick to the mind from this one. There are a lot of interesting close-up shots of Crawford, hiding the disfigured side of her face under a hat. The story seems to be concerned with the new magic of the times of applied psychology and restoration surgery. There is one fantastic scene where Crawford rides on a cable car, with a little boy she is supposed to kill. Her back and forth, until she decides that she cannot do it, are quite remarkable. Another  memorable moment was the horse sled chase. Nothing compared to modern chase sequences, but the idea struck me as very original. The film might have been quite enjoyable at the time, but has not aged too well in my opinion. It might be a good example of a highly structured screenplay, I think: Setting up the blackmail and the operation At the new home A new life at the farmhouse She has to kill the boy and wi...

The daughter of a businessman in Shanghai is lured into the swamp of booze and gambling by the owner of a troubled casino. This movie caught me on the wrong foot. Largely, I didn't know what to make of it WHILE I was watching. It seems to me, that this is the much better *after* you've seen it, than during the course of its run. There is a bizarre quality in how Sternberg has framed his shots. Sometimes it felt that he just recorded close-ups of every actor, added some stunning total shots and then tried to figure out the script after the fact. Obviously, this is totally untrue, but those amazing close-ups only came to life in my head after the film was over. Huston as the brooding father with the dark past has amazing images and looks like somebody with a seemingly very dark past. The hairstyles have not to be commented on - an image is more than enough and Tierney looks breathtaking. There is one jaw-dropping sequence where the camera enters the casino for the first ...

A poor farmer has to raise 50 dollar before the weekend to keep his little farm on Tobacco Road. Although highly stagey, both in idea and execution, this was a fabulously funny film to watch (although I went through some problems until I could understand the characters). Also, the ending is quite amazing with the beautiful realization that it's not so easy to really change. I was quite touched by it and it also was a big surprise for what I expected to become a really run-of-the-mill happy end. I remember many beautiful details of the film: the dog, running to the mans lap to be stroked, the naughtily innocent Gene Tierney (in her first role?), the insolent husband of the other daughter and the obnoxious little boy. His incessant rambling is simply hilarious, and the blazing stupidity of his character are of such, as I cannot remember from any other film I have seen. This might be very worth re-watching, maybe with focus on the dialogue.  There is a lot of it, a bit hard to...

A poor farmer sells his soul to the devil in a moment of despair and within a few years becomes the richest man in New Hampshire. This was a movie I thoroughly enjoyed. It's a beautiful modern fairy tale, where the morale has been supplanted with a liberal political message: The good will triumph, even in court (which reads strangely ironic). The urge to deliver simple, inspiring truths during the wartime probably helped this picture along, but it still stands beautifully now. The structure of the movie was straightforward as far as I could tell - I'm sure they went by the book, from the point of dramaturgy. What I found exciting was the devil portrayed by Walter Huston. This creature is effervescent with good humor and when he's listening to the farmer he's absolutely honest about his empathy.  He was a delight to follow on the screen. More of his work! The final jury scene is a classic and at least famous enough to be copied by the Simpsons.

The oldest meta-film comedy I know of and highly slapsticky, too. After seeing this a couple of weeks ago, I can only remember a few, pretty physical things about the movie. There is a reference to Citizen Kane, so the original must have made quite a stir already when it came out. If they referenced any other movies, I didn't see them. I do remember: Elisha Cook Jr as the frustrated 40s version of the screenwriter - looking like the shriveled version of Billy Wilder. There is some kind of count, posing as a poser of a count and counting. And there is a big swimming pool with all sorts of shenanigans going on - basically synchronicity swimmers on acid (something I would very much like to see).

The story of a generation in a family of miners in a valley in Wales. The film manages to successfully immerse me in the world of the simple miners trying to cope with novelties such as unions or education. The humble and simple men and women are a likeable bunch, well displayed in their disposition to break out in song at pretty much any occasion. It definitively is a very melodramatic film but to my great surprise it doesn't culminate in sweet happy-ending, but a quiet, somber mood of reflection and after-thought, which felt like a great thing after some of the more kitschy moments. In a way it reminded me a bit of "I remember Mama" although the story is more literate, and the confrontations are quite over the top, as far as there are any. It's sort of a Hollywood kitchen-sink drama, all fluffy and dirty at the same time.  But I was able to enjoy it very much.

 A skyscraper construction site is musically reinterpreted by Freleng and his animators. Although quite an old animation this one held quite a few surprises for me in terms of visual gags. The story is quite simple, if you could even call it that. I like the idea of the foreman being a high-brow conductor although his "construction mentality" shines through every now and then. The animation plays on the famous photographs of the men sitting on beams high above the city. When the building collapses I was wondering if there was a general notion in those days that high-rise buildings might not be up to par with quality standards.

 A ruthless wife tries to get her withering husband to participate in a business venture. The film was quite amazing as the characters were chiseled out quite strongly. Especially Bette Davis performance stands out and was a feast to watch. At the very end it is quite remarkable how she underplays the way she is washed away by her insight that she has lost something quite else. There is talk that there was a lot of tension between Wyler and Davis on how she took the character into an outright evil direction, but I'm glad that she did. It is interesting to observe how the brothers, although in some ways clichéd pushed the story along very strongly. Worth for studying the structure and character development. The direction seems to owe a lot to the stage, maybe they didn't have enough time to set up more elaborate sets. But the camera did work with a lot of depth, interesting close-ups with far back action.

The son of a rich brewer falls in love with a beautiful con-artist. Only my second Sturges film and I am really amazed by it. The story has an extremely modern feel to it, although some of the jokes on contemporary morale don't work anymore. I loved the cast and the characters they depicted - it felt that every role down to the last little sidekick had been carefully selected to be played by just the right actor. The scene with the horse at the sunset was so amazing that I watched it three times through. Not only the horse but the selection of camera angle and framing had been made in such a way that it looked even more grotesque, without turning the lead actors faces distorted, or funny.