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...

A fragile woman - unsettled by witnessing the murder of her mother - is driven to insanity by her ruthless husband. I found the story a bit contrived, but within the universe it set up it worked wonderfully. Maybe because of the expectation of something closer to Hitchcock it took me a while to get immersed into this universe. What really stood out for me was Bergman. It was a perfect role for her, hovering on the verge of insanity, being fragile and demanding at the same time. Also Charles Boyer, slowly stepping up the coldness and ruthlessness of his husband act was extremely convincing. Joseph Cotten perfectly rounds out the cast and Angela Lansbury was hilarious to watch.

 An ex-alcoholic ex-husband tries to win back his wife on the eve of her new marriage. Strangely enough, I didn't enjoy this viewing as much as I hoped to. I couldn't warm up too much to Hepburn and Stewart, her seeming a bit too cold and distant and Stewart being a bit over the top at all times. I was really amazed by Grant's performance, he really is a master of comedic timing - although once in a while there was a little help from the editing room. There were a couple of really funny scenes, my favorite being the opening shot with this totally absurd act of violence of Grant's character towards Hepburn. The side characters had not enough definition for me, especially the mother and Uncle Willy, I would have loved to see them more absurd, like in "The Lady Eve", where everybody is totally over the top. I could also strongly feel the theatrical character of the play shining through very often. There are often situations where the characters just ...