As star vehicle and excuse for one-liners, THAHN has never entertained me as much as other Hawks movies in the same vein; it's agreeably minor.
― Rich Lolwry (Alfred, Lord Sotosyn), Saturday, 19 February 2011 18:35 (thirteen years ago) link
Fans of Claude Rains should check out a little-known David Lean movie called The Passionate Friends in which he plays a variant of his Notorious cuckold, only this time his rival is Trevor Howard and he makes more of an effort to stick up for himself.
― Matching Poll: The Soft Machine Mole (James Redd and the Blecchs), Saturday, 19 February 2011 18:43 (thirteen years ago) link
Rains was superb. He's the only reason to watch Mrs Skeffington.
― Rich Lolwry (Alfred, Lord Sotosyn), Saturday, 19 February 2011 18:45 (thirteen years ago) link
I recall somebody mocking his technique because apparently it involved a lot of counting - count to four, sit down, count to three, pick up teacup, count two, put down teacup- but the results speak for themselves
― Matching Poll: The Soft Machine Mole (James Redd and the Blecchs), Saturday, 19 February 2011 19:07 (thirteen years ago) link
also, "I am shocked...shocked" among the most-quoted character actor lines of all time.
― kind of shrill and very self-righteous (Dr Morbius), Saturday, 19 February 2011 21:45 (thirteen years ago) link
also, "I am shocked...shocked" among the most-quoted character actor lines of all time. --kind of shrill and very self-righteous (Dr Morbius)
― Matching Poll: The Soft Machine Mole (James Redd and the Blecchs), Saturday, 19 February 2011 22:54 (thirteen years ago) link
Sorry. Didn't mean to do that. Was just going to say that line and the one about rounding up the usual suspects.
― Matching Poll: The Soft Machine Mole (James Redd and the Blecchs), Saturday, 19 February 2011 22:57 (thirteen years ago) link
"but everybody's having such a good time"
― mookieproof, Saturday, 19 February 2011 22:59 (thirteen years ago) link
also fantastic as prince john in robin hood, if that's not too off-topic.
― Achillean Heel (darraghmac), Saturday, 19 February 2011 23:01 (thirteen years ago) link
morbs otm
― balls, Sunday, 20 February 2011 00:01 (thirteen years ago) link
Automatic thread bump. This poll is closing tomorrow.
― System, Friday, 25 February 2011 00:01 (thirteen years ago) link
casablanca is so goddamn contrived. i cannot for a moment believe in any of the stories - there's no romantic chemistry for a start and the lines are glibly tossed-off. 'here's looking at you kid' is almost physically painful by the 3rd time. the whole thing's a lumpen and completely alienating experience for me - only the actor who plays Louis has me in any way convinced
THAHN is otoh genius and the most fun you can have in a cinema and bogart/bacall are juuuuuust the best and YAY and 'what are you trying to do, guess her weight' is better than all of casablanca's lines put together
― acoleuthic, Friday, 25 February 2011 23:16 (thirteen years ago) link
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=48rz8udZBmQ
― Roberto Spiralli, Friday, 25 February 2011 23:28 (thirteen years ago) link
Automatic thread bump. This poll's results are now in.
― System, Saturday, 26 February 2011 00:01 (thirteen years ago) link
Your job is to work out which one is which, and agree with me.
Anarchy reigns in ile. Or at least utter freedom from agreement with acoleuthic. Thus was it ever.
― Aimless, Saturday, 26 February 2011 00:25 (thirteen years ago) link
i cannot for a moment believe in any of the stories
Suspend your disbelief, you troglodyte.
Love Hawks, Bogie & Bacall, but the Big Sleep blew TH&HN away. btw you could see both in a Jersey City picture palace this weekend (and I've never seen Dark Passage):
http://loewsjersey.org/
― kind of shrill and very self-righteous (Dr Morbius), Saturday, 26 February 2011 02:05 (thirteen years ago) link
Like the lady said about Hamlet: "I don't see why people admire that play so. It is nothing but a bunch of quotations strung together."
― Brad C., Saturday, 26 February 2011 02:10 (thirteen years ago) link
Can't believe lj voted 5 times
― symsymsym, Saturday, 26 February 2011 02:35 (thirteen years ago) link
hawks knew how to tell stories, curtiz knew how to...point a camera?
the very situation of the characters in THAHN is so much more believable and relatable. casablanca they're either the wealthy owners of clubs, the police-chiefs, the stiff-as-posts resistance leaders. the plot relies upon a coincidence wrought from lack of storytelling imagination and there's a really unnecessary bit where no suspense occurs at all when bogart looks as though he's about to swindle the resistance duo out of their tickets and then pulls the gun on louis (this is all v silly and it's obvious what DIFFICULT MORAL DECISION he has to make).
THAHN's character ensemble is magical, things happen accidentally or synergistically, there's genuine suspense, blah blah blah. also the bad guys in casablanca are lame and the fat dude in THAHN is awesome (as is the silent guy)
god
― acoleuthic, Saturday, 26 February 2011 04:14 (thirteen years ago) link
i mean THAHN is basically world-weary sailor meets awesome impulsive gap-year student and they help some genuinely distressed/injured/tired/battle-scarred resistance types (with the occasional frisson of gallic seduction) make a daring escape, walter brennan does his thing, everything fits into place...
― acoleuthic, Saturday, 26 February 2011 04:16 (thirteen years ago) link
casablanca they're either the wealthy owners of clubs, the police-chiefs, the stiff-as-posts resistance leaders
or yvonne, who sleeps with renault to get her husband and herself out, and is aided by our heroor carl the bartender who says 'honest? as honest as the day is long!'plus peter fuckin lorreplus claude fuckin raines <----------sidney fuckin greenstreetany number of epic linesok victor laszlo was wooden but he was supposed to bethe nazi colonel could have been betteri don't want to get into comparing ingrid bergman and lauren bacall, but either way no one losesyes it is melodramatic and predictablebut it works magnificently
― mookieproof, Saturday, 26 February 2011 04:28 (thirteen years ago) link
also i haven't seen th&hn so
― mookieproof, Saturday, 26 February 2011 04:30 (thirteen years ago) link
lol
Yeah, and while we're at it -- what's up with that stupid story of Prometheus, anyway? An eagle comes and eats his liver every day and it grows back! Totally unbelievable!
― Aimless, Saturday, 26 February 2011 04:30 (thirteen years ago) link
that's a good analogy for the human condition. THAHN is an analogy for the duties humans have to each other, and a paean to escapism. casablanca is an analogy for unlikely love triangles
nuff
― acoleuthic, Saturday, 26 February 2011 04:33 (thirteen years ago) link
Moby-Dick: nut chases a big fish
― kind of shrill and very self-righteous (Dr Morbius), Saturday, 26 February 2011 04:33 (thirteen years ago) link
nah that's all about man vs nature, doomed to never conquer what may consume him despite monomaniacal desire and thorough knowledge of environs, ya know the real hard-ass shit
― acoleuthic, Saturday, 26 February 2011 04:35 (thirteen years ago) link
doomed to never conquer what may consume him despite monomaniacal desire and thorough knowledge of environs
like u in this thread amirite
― mookieproof, Saturday, 26 February 2011 04:37 (thirteen years ago) link
Had a long argumenet with a buddy yesterday with a Hawks-besotted buddy; I insisted that Cukor, Hathaway, Curtiz made as many good (and bad) films as Hawks. As much as I love about seven or eight of his movies, I'm kinda tired of the Hawks love, to be honest.
― Rich Lolwry (Alfred, Lord Sotosyn), Saturday, 26 February 2011 04:38 (thirteen years ago) link
agh, ignore bad editing
of the Hawks I've seen, 2 or 3 are all-time great (THAHN, BUB, maybe The Big Sleep altho I need to see that again), one is great (Red River), His Girl Friday wasn't actually anything like it's cracked up to be and I still need to see Rio Bravo, still a good success rate
― acoleuthic, Saturday, 26 February 2011 04:41 (thirteen years ago) link
My friend (still in his twenties) confessed that he loves Hawks mostly because he wishes men and women talked like the characters in Hawks films. It's "mature" instead of mature.
― Rich Lolwry (Alfred, Lord Sotosyn), Saturday, 26 February 2011 04:43 (thirteen years ago) link
gilbert adair said much the same abt art house audiences and rohmer. it doesn't make for bad films in either case.
― zvookster, Saturday, 26 February 2011 04:47 (thirteen years ago) link
His Girl Friday wasn't actually anything like it's cracked up to be
U H8 THE MOVIES
― zvookster, Saturday, 26 February 2011 04:48 (thirteen years ago) link
down ilx avenue we was goin 65 miles an hour ... can u imagine bumping into lj? opinions come rolling out like oranges.
― zvookster, Saturday, 26 February 2011 04:49 (thirteen years ago) link
lj, I am happy that you love THATH.
However, ILX has spoken and the moving finger writes, and having writ moves on, nor all thy piety nor wit can lure it back to cancel half a line. We prefer Casablanca, however silly and unbelievable it is (and it is silly and unbelievable), because those qualities do not override its other excellences.
― Aimless, Saturday, 26 February 2011 04:52 (thirteen years ago) link
also, you have gotten me to dl th&hn
― mookieproof, Saturday, 26 February 2011 04:58 (thirteen years ago) link
I'm shocked to find myself mostly agreeing with LJ on these two, but it's not by much. Actually I think I like them equally as films, but Bacall gets me harder than Chinese algebra in TH&HN, as the saying goes.
― old man yells at poop first thing in the morning (pixel farmer), Saturday, 26 February 2011 05:07 (thirteen years ago) link
confession time: saw THAHN on the big screen (at the NFT) and casablanca on an airplane
ban me
― acoleuthic, Saturday, 26 February 2011 05:10 (thirteen years ago) link
'his girl friday' is the most entertaining movie ever if you see it on the big screen -- pretty much just nonstop lols, and the most amazing cary grant performance there is -- even the way he moves is kind of hilarious. i used to think the serious bits slowed it down, but they worked for me last time i saw it.
has anyone actually read the hemingway novel 'to have and have not'? is it anything like the movie?
― (The Other) J.D. (J.D.), Saturday, 26 February 2011 05:36 (thirteen years ago) link
the really great hawks movie that no one talks about is the original 'scarface.' it's also the meanest and most atypical of his movies: still kind of bracingly harsh and violent, and not a wisecracking, boyish dame or lovable band of misfit professionals in sight.
― (The Other) J.D. (J.D.), Saturday, 26 February 2011 05:38 (thirteen years ago) link
I think Hathaway is a hack who made many more bad and mediocre movies than hawks.
― bamcquern, Saturday, 26 February 2011 08:16 (thirteen years ago) link
I have the feeling you'd decided all this before actually even seeing this film. STICK IT TO THE CLASSIC FILM FAN GERONTOCRACY LOUIS, YUO ALONE CAN REWRITE FILM CRITICAL HISTORY!#@.
This is really pretty sad and ignorant IMO.
― lycanthrope electrif (Pashmina), Saturday, 26 February 2011 09:47 (thirteen years ago) link
not true. went into THAHN thinking 'well my friend's invited me to this and it might be ok' and had my mind blown. went into casablanca thinking 'this is meant to be awesome, please make my 30-hour plane journey more tolerable' and i guess it did at least do that
― acoleuthic, Saturday, 26 February 2011 09:53 (thirteen years ago) link
Maybe, but The other is a strong candidate for the most overrated film of all time. Your job is to work out which one is which, and agree with me. and suchlike doesn't come across like that, it comes across like your main motivation is to be ilx gadfly #1. This is probably why ppl are not engaging w you and just taking potshots for the most part.
― lycanthrope electrif (Pashmina), Saturday, 26 February 2011 10:00 (thirteen years ago) link
only the actor who plays Louis has me in any way convinced
i am convinced as well ... that louis is trolling
― sarahel, Saturday, 26 February 2011 10:07 (thirteen years ago) link
next he'll be calling Verigo unbelievable and silly, which will put me in a slowly-I-turn lather.
I prefer romantic desperation to sassy seductions, so I don't think there's anything in the Hawks movie like Bergman balling her fist after she says "Kiss me as if it were the last time" to Bogart in Paris. Also, the Marseillaise scene makes me cry every time, and I won't even stand for The Star-Spangled Banner.
I think Hemingway made some joke about how there's almost nothing from his book in TH&HN. I would like to see it again, along with the fucking thousand other movies I'd like to rewatch. Does LJ know that Curtiz remade this movie in '50 w/ John Garfield?
love Scarface '32.
― kind of shrill and very self-righteous (Dr Morbius), Saturday, 26 February 2011 13:41 (thirteen years ago) link
vertigo's stupid, never saw the big deal about it
― ℳℴℯ ❤\(◕‿◕✿ (Princess TamTam), Saturday, 26 February 2011 13:51 (thirteen years ago) link
also, "I am shocked...shocked" among the most-quoted character actor lines of all time.― kind of shrill and very self-righteous (Dr Morbius), Saturday, February 19, 2011 9:45 PM (1 week ago) Bookmark
― kind of shrill and very self-righteous (Dr Morbius), Saturday, February 19, 2011 9:45 PM (1 week ago) Bookmark
haha i only recently realized where this thing i have said lots of times came from
haven't seen either of these films in a long-ass time
even though bacall and bergman set new standards for screen beauty, they're both pretty far down my list of 'great movies', but 'casablanca' is better
― this odyssey that refuses to quit calling itself (history mayne), Saturday, 26 February 2011 13:51 (thirteen years ago) link
I said upthread that I think Casablanca's a little overrated, and I'll stand by that. One Curtiz film I think is underrated is Mildred Pierce. It was a long time before I watched it--always assumed it'd be really stagy and drippy--and when I finally did, I was surprised by its weirdness, how it's much more of a noir than the soap opera I was expecting, and how artful the camerawork is.
― clemenza, Saturday, 26 February 2011 14:12 (thirteen years ago) link
she's been through two husbands, don't think she gets to be an ingenue
― this odyssey that refuses to quit calling itself (history mayne), Saturday, 26 February 2011 18:38 (thirteen years ago) link
perhaps costume will show off breeder hips
― kind of shrill and very self-righteous (Dr Morbius), Saturday, 26 February 2011 18:41 (thirteen years ago) link
Also, the Marseillaise scene makes me cry every time
this is one of the best bits
THAHN is not ALL about sassy seduction - the main love-story is underplayed slightly (the kisses are passionate but fleeting) and the seduction stands for something grander and more escapist about grasping the moment. Plus, when the French couple come in later, injured and tired and deadly serious, there's grit and worry all right, just that it doesn't dominate the mood - it places bogart'n'bacall's happy-go-lucky shenanigans in perspective and gives the picture a more rounded feel
Did not know about the Curtiz remake. Probably owe it a watch now.
― acoleuthic, Saturday, 26 February 2011 22:11 (thirteen years ago) link
I think I've got it straight now with regards to Mildred Pierce: with rest of world, not underrated; on ILX, underrated.
― clemenza, Saturday, 26 February 2011 22:49 (thirteen years ago) link
Surprisingly, I couldn't find any Bogart threads (perhaps time for a poll?), but I'm reviving just to post this:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Sqoxk3SrZRw
Damn.
― Vini Reilly Invasion (Elvis Telecom), Monday, 7 May 2012 06:10 (twelve years ago) link
Boo! Anyway, it was the bookstore scene from The Big Sleep with Dorothy Malone.
― Vini Reilly Invasion (Elvis Telecom), Monday, 7 May 2012 06:11 (twelve years ago) link
Only watched African Queen for the first time the other day and it completely changed my perception of Bogie. He's so goofy in it!
― I wish to incorporate disco into my small business (chap), Tuesday, 9 July 2013 17:14 (ten years ago) link
btw that second go at THAHN, The Breaking Point w/ John Garfield, Phyllis Thaxter and Patricia Neal, is amazingly good.
When you see a '40s vehicle of Bogart's like Dead Reckoning come up second-rate, you realize how great the great stuff was.
― son of a lewd monk (Dr Morbius), Monday, 4 August 2014 21:20 (nine years ago) link
watched CASABLANCA last night for the first time in years. few other films are so easily affecting: ilsa’s first appearance, rick’s drunken reminiscing, that rendition of “la marseillaise”...fuck nazis!!
― k3vin k., Saturday, 25 May 2019 20:22 (five years ago) link
As I said in another Casablanca thread, several impressions why it is wonderful, but not exactly perfect:
― A is for (Aimless), Sunday, 26 May 2019 02:48 (five years ago) link
It is very rainy and foggy in Morrocco. Who knew?
Prior to climate change altering things everywhere, Casablanca has slightly higher average rainfall than Southern California does.
― Elvis Telecom, Sunday, 26 May 2019 03:37 (five years ago) link