[josemas]

Just a reminder for anyone interested, the SyFy Channel is running another Green Hornet marathon tomorrow.  This marathon is scheduled to run all the episodes not aired in the last marathon (along with a few repeats).

Best

Joe

[josemas]

Just finished watching Edward G. Robinson's 1938 crime farce "A Slight Case of Murder", evidently based on a play by Damon Runyan. Although I had seen the 1950's Broderick Crawford remake ("Stop, You're Killing Me") I had never seen the original. Most of the cast were Warner's B movie character actors, but they were just great, as was Robinson. I think I enjoyed this just as much or better than his other two crime-comedies, "Larceny, Inc." and "Brother Orchid". Cheers, Bowers

I've also seen all of these over the years (except for that Broderick Crawford remake which I'd never heard of until now) and enjoyed them all.  I tend to agree with you that A Slight Case of Murder is probably the best of those three Robinson crime-comedies.

Best

Joe

[profh0011]

boox909 wrote:
"I have this set on DVD also. It is a gem! I used to watch the episodes on the local PBS every Sunday night and loved it! It became the end of my weekend ritual."

This may sound blasphemous... but it just occured to me, the 50's SHERLOCK HOLMES struck me much the same as the Cathy Gale AVENGERS.  That is, the 1st time I watched them, I thought, "Hmm... okay."  The 2nd time, "Hey-- this is getting better."  I suppose as long as something isn't completely AWFUL, sometimes, it can be seen as fun to watch.

I mean, in the case of Holmes, there have been SO MANY versions!!! And since Jeremy Brett, there continue to be SO MANY new versions!!! Aside from wondering, "WHY??" (clearly money is at the root of it, pure and simple), it seems to me, NOBODY has done Holmes anywhere near as good as Brett since Brett.

So, compared to so many of these, the Howard-Crawford HOLMES isn't so bad! (Yes, I'd love to see the Douglas Wilmer series-- and the Peter Cushing series that followed it... but neither of them EVER turned up in the US. Oh well, at least I have THE MASKS OF DEATH, which was fabulous!)



By the way, what's anyone think of the Arthur Wontner-Ian Fleming version?

[josemas]

So, compared to so many of these, the Howard-Crawford HOLMES isn't so bad! (Yes, I'd love to see the Douglas Wilmer series-- and the Peter Cushing series that followed it... but neither of them EVER turned up in the US. Oh well, at least I have THE MASKS OF DEATH, which was fabulous!)

A & E Video released a DVD set of the surviving episodes of the Peter Cushing Holmes series in the U. S. a little over a year ago.  I've often seen it available for prices in the $5.00-15.00 range.

Best

Joe

[josemas]

boox909 wrote:
"I have this set on DVD also. It is a gem! I used to watch the episodes on the local PBS every Sunday night and loved it! It became the end of my weekend ritual."

This may sound blasphemous... but it just occured to me, the 50's SHERLOCK HOLMES struck me much the same as the Cathy Gale AVENGERS.  That is, the 1st time I watched them, I thought, "Hmm... okay."  The 2nd time, "Hey-- this is getting better."  I suppose as long as something isn't completely AWFUL, sometimes, it can be seen as fun to watch.

I mean, in the case of Holmes, there have been SO MANY versions!!! And since Jeremy Brett, there continue to be SO MANY new versions!!! Aside from wondering, "WHY??" (clearly money is at the root of it, pure and simple), it seems to me, NOBODY has done Holmes anywhere near as good as Brett since Brett.

By the way, what's anyone think of the Arthur Wontner-Ian Fleming version?

It's been so long since I viewed any of the Wonter-Fleming Holmes films that I have no memory of them at this point. 

I've only viewed a couple episodes from the 1950s Howard series so far so will reserve final judgment until I've got the entire series under my belt.

Certainly agree with you that the Brett series is the tops.

Know what you mean about something not having to be great to be fun to watch.  Probably why I enjoy so many AIP movies from the 1950s-1970s era.

Best

Joe

[josemas]

(Yes, I'd love to see the Douglas Wilmer series-- and the Peter Cushing series that followed it... but neither of them EVER turned up in the US.

I just learned that BBC Warner released a DVD set of the surviving Wilmer Holmes episodes in the U. S. a few months ago.  SRP is $19.98 but it can often be found for less.

Best

Joe

[profh0011]

The Wontner films have a rather older than usual Holmes (he's "retired" in one of them), and a great deal of deduction (more than you usually see in a Rathbone film). On the other hand, Rathbone tends to be more "dynamic", and I've recently seen his intensity compared to Brett's.

After reading multiple reviews of Ronald Howard yesterday, and the feeling than many find him a likeable, more "human" Holmes, I was reminded of Christopher Plummer's portrayal. At the time, I ranked Plummer equal to Rathbone-- although he was VERY different. I ranked Ian Richardson as better than Rathbone, though sadly he only got to do 2 stories. The last time I watched my collection, I found Richardson's THE SIGN OF FOUR the best of several different versions I've seen, and vastly better than Brett's version! (Though I've seen reviews to the contrary-- it's interesting reading so many differernt and often contradictory opinions of things like this.)

I also knew there was a lot of personal problems and tragedy in Brett's life, but yesterday I found out a lot I didn't know, reading the Wikipedia article about him.

One thing they didn't mention was he appeared in a 1979 TV version of REBECCA, in the Laurence Olivier role.  That I'd love to see!


Still no DVD player, and no money to worry about it, which is frustrating given how CHEAP so many things are these days compared to the prices of VHS tapes!

[profh0011]

Been watching the Adam West BATMAN series again, and today, I think I may have seen the inspiration for the 90's cartoon character of Harley Quinn. In "THE PENGUIN'S NEST" / "THE BIRD'S LAST JEST", among his gang is a girl in a bright red outfit with a high-pitched voice who seems a lot more homicidal than most girl sidekicks on the show. Twice, "Chickadee" (Grace Gaynmor) was quick to pull a gun on someone, the 2nd time, Aunt Harriet. When she did this, she yelled out, "ALRIGHT, Batman-- better GIVE UP, or I'll BLOW the old lady's BRAINS out!" Unusual dialogue for this show, especially from a female!

[josemas]

Still no DVD player, and no money to worry about it, which is frustrating given how CHEAP so many things are these days compared to the prices of VHS tapes!

Know what you mean about about money being tight.  I've had lots of ups and downs this past decade and the last few years have been particularly tough on a lot of us.   

DVD players can be picked up very cheaply if one watches for sales.  The last three DVD players I bought were all under $20.00. 
 
Due to the sluggish economy discs can often be picked up very cheaply.  Check out places like Big Lots, Half Price Books and Dollar stores for remainders and such.  Have picked up numerous films for $3.00 or less there and whole seasons of TV shows for $10.00 or less.
Or better yet see if your local library has any to check out.  Ours has a great selection.  The HBO John Adams series I recently wrote about came from our library.  They've also got tons of documentaries (currently rewatching World at War and Ken Burn's Baseball-an episode per week of each), plenty of classics (recently rewatched Clark Gable in Mogambo) and award winning films (have Attenborough's biopic on Chaplin with Robert Downey, Jr. in the wings).

Best

Joe

[bowers]

I've found some surprisingly good dvds at the Dollar Store- Flash Gordon, Cisco Kid, and several Basil Rathbone Sherlock Holmes episodes. Some of the  cartoon discs feature some very incredible animation from long-gone studios, as well as the better known Fleischer and Lanz stuff. The library is also a great resource. I just checked out a six-part BBC documentary titled "Egypt". Great series which I never even knew existed. Loved the way the series was presented- a combination of drama, flashbacks, and narration. BBC knows how to get it right. Cheers, Bowers

[profh0011]

Tonight:

THE UNIVITED (1944) with Ray Milland & Alan Napier (2 decades before THE PREMATURE BURIAL).




*****SPOILERS*****



I watched this for the 4th time today. I decided to take a break in the middle
(after dinner). Good thing, not long after I fell asleep for about an
hour-and-a-half. A couple hours later, I got back to it (with a late-night
snack). And I FINALLY made it thru, wide-awake.


This is a very "subtle" movie, no doubt because of the Production Code. There's
a lot to the mystery that I suspect would have given the Hayes Office fits. But
I've figured it all out now.


A pair of EVIL LESBIANS was at the heart of the entire thing! (Not that
lesbians are inherently evil of course... just that the two in this story were.)


I've heard some people object to modern fans "transferring" their own modern
thoughts and sensibilities onto old movies where there wasn't really anything
there. But I am sure that is NOT the case in this movie. What we have is quite
definite-- but almost hidden in very mild, vague language, so as not to "offend"
anybody who saw it back in 1944.



I definitely reccomend this film if you've never seen it. I heard about it for
ages, and it quickly became a favorite of mine... even if, for whatever reason,
it's taken me THIS long to be able to follow the plot all the way thru. (It's
nice when the "light" finally goes on in my head, and I think, "Oh-- I get it!")



Henry

[paw broon]

Last night we watched Hustle, which was really good and sharp - getting a bit difficult to find words to do it justice - and a rerun of the latest Top Gear.  This is the one where they go to Albania.  Can't figure out how they get away with it but you have to try and catch this one.  Funniest thing we've watched this month.  I also bought a box of the 70's Paul Temple tv show - with Francis Mathews in the role - and although the film and production are dated some of the episodes are still entertaining.  I was curious to see these again because I've been ordering reprints of the Paul Temple newspaper strip from All Devon Comic Collectors Club and the strips are very well done.

[narfstar]

I never considered watching Top Gear. Without revealing too much why was it so funny?

[paw broon]

Any trip to places like Albania should at least be odd.  But a Yugo doubling as a Bentley?  Albanian mafia refs., dead man in the trunk, stolen Mercs, chased by the polis, slapstick and all those MIG fighters. My wife was sore laughing.  It's just silliness and a bit objectionable at times. Oh, and by the way, they've succeeded in insulting Mexico and it's people to the extent of ambassadorial complaints, so apologies to anyone from there but it wisnae me. 

[profh0011]

Last night: A STUDY IN TERROR

John Neville made an excellent Holmes, while Donald Houston was merely an average Watson (just there to look confused, or astonished).

What amazed me this time around (at least the 3rd time I've seen this) is the number of actors in it I was familar with from other films, several of whom I never "connected" before.  Examples: Donald Houston (one of the "traitors" in WHERE EAGLES DARE), Anthony Qualye (THE GUNS OF NAVARONE), Barry Jones ("Claudius" in DEMETRIUS AND THE GLADIATORS, as well as the very 1st OUTER LIMITS I ever saw, "The Borderland"), Cecil Parker (my favorite Saint villain in THE SAINT'S VACATION), Frank Finlay (Van Helsing in the BBC COUNT DRACULA, the villain in SHAFT IN AFRICA, one of Richard Lester's THREE MUSKETEERS, and of course, he played the same character in this film and MURDER BY DECREE), Robert Morley (THE ALPHABET MURDERS among other things, he was really excellent as Mycroft in this!). Two that really surprised me were John Fraser ("The Monitor" in "Logopolis", the final Tom Baker DOCTOR WHO story, I did not recognize him at all clean-shaven), and Judi Densch (6 "007" films and AS TIME GOES BY !!--she's so YOUNG in this!).

Then there's director James Hill, whose name I recognized from 3 episodes of THE SAINT (with Roger Moore), 7 episodes of THE AVENGERS and 2 of the very best episodes of THE NEW AVENGERS.

Lot of good people involved for what might be called a "slasher" film!



Today I'm watching THE PRIVATE LIFE OF SHERLOCK HOLMES, and while interesting, is quite a come-down on all levels compared to the earlier "exploitation" flick.

[josemas]

Last night: A STUDY IN TERROR

Last saw this back in the early 1970s.  Also read the book around the same time.  Holmes and Jack the Ripper.  Something that other authors would tackle later but I believe that this was the first time it was done.  The book also has a wraparound story which involves Ellery Queen (the first Queen book I ever read) and is definitely worth a read if you liked the movie.

Best

Joe

[profh0011]

It's amazing the sort of thing you can find at the IMDB.  Turns out the Billy Wilder film involved 3 different film companies, and one of them was the SAME company that made A STUDY IN TERROR. They only did about a dozen films, but their output looks interesting (in an "exploitation" sort of way).

Wilder apparently at first wanted to cast Peter O'Toole & Peter Sellers (who'd beein in both WHAT'S NEW PUSSYCAT and CASINO ROYALE) but then decided to use "lesser-known" actors.  I have a hard time picturing Sellers as Watson, but I think O'Toole would have been much better as Holmes.


So last night I watched Gene Wilder's THE ADVENTURE OF SHERLOCK HOLMES' SMARTER BROTHER, which feels like a follow-up to YOUNG FRANKENSTEIN (considering Wilder, Marty Feldman AND Madelaine Kahn are all in it).  Funny thing... Leo McKern's Moriarty looks a lot like the guy from the Arthur Wontner films.  Also, it's the ONLY film I have with Douglas Wilmer as Holmes!  (And Thorley Walters as Watson)

[Ratty]

I've found some surprisingly good dvds at the Dollar Store- Flash Gordon, Cisco Kid, and several Basil Rathbone Sherlock Holmes episodes. Some of the  cartoon discs feature some very incredible animation from long-gone studios, as well as the better known Fleischer and Lanz stuff. The library is also a great resource. I just checked out a six-part BBC documentary titled "Egypt". Great series which I never even knew existed. Loved the way the series was presented- a combination of drama, flashbacks, and narration. BBC knows how to get it right. Cheers, Bowers

If you don't mind lower (ripped-from-vhs mostly) quality video you might might enjoy some of the 50-or-thereabouts to 100 movie packs released by Mill Creek. If you're not familiar with them already.  http://www.amazon.com/Horror-Movie-Pack-Bela-Lugosi/dp/B000NVIGD4 http://www.amazon.com/Spaghetti-Western-Collection-11pc-Cleef/dp/B003XMKUFC
Again, the quality of most of these movies would be about on par with an old VHS (with a few better and a few worse) and most of the movies are in the public domain so you could find them for free online. But these gigantic genre movie sets do pack a lot of convenience for your buck.

PS- As is pointed out in several reviews from that 100 movie pack you should be aware that if you buy several sets from MC it's pretty much guaranteed to not be a question of *if* but rather *how many* of the same movies they'll have. So always want to check that. And Mill Creek has in recent years taken to producing much higher quality 11 - 15 movie compilations of films they actually license, mostly 70s/early 80s horror from what I've seen.

[profh0011]

Just finished watching a NERO WOLFE 2-parter.  And my mind is SPINNING.  These things are SO complicated, but this one ("DEATH OF A DOXY") is complicated in a way unusual even for this show.  Trying to figure all the connections of people, and the motives for 2 different killings, and the details of Wolfe "earning" $50,000 plus an additional $50,000 for a woman who helped... and let's not forget actress Kari Matchett, who played TWO completely different, unrelated characters IN THE SAME STORY, and the personality of one of them just flipped me out when I saw this earlier.  Quite a bit this time, too, but it's been too soon since I saw an earlier episode where she played someone I liked even more (but who got murdered, which really bugged me no end).  I guess my taste in women keeps evolving.  I guess it's like the one line in the story, about Archie might have considered marriage, but he'd "never be able to keep up with her" (if you saw how this character talked and acted, you'd understand why).


All the stories in the 1st season were set in the 50's, but this was looks like it was set in 1966. Wild fashions, etc. etc.


I was just thinking the other day, these mysteries are SO complicated, I'm actually getting the feeling I should pop the tape in IMMEDIATELY (or the very next day) and watch the same story AGAIN, just so I can see if I can figure out what the HELL I just watched!

[narfstar]

Maybe after I retire I will attempt to watch such complicated movies. My mind is to preoccupied now 

[josemas]

All the stories in the 1st season were set in the 50's, but this was looks like it was set in 1966. Wild fashions, etc. etc.

That's interesting.  My memory of the show was that they were all set somewhere in the 1950s.  I guess I misremembered that. 
Death of a Doxy (which is one that I don't believe I've ever read) was published in the mid 1960s so maybe there was something in that story that they felt had to have a 1960s setting when they adapted it.

Best

Joe

[paw broon]

I have to get into Nero Wolfe.  I read the books when I was young because my dad went on about how good they were - and he was right.
We've been watching more episodes of Gideon's Law (a box set) with John Gregson as Commander Gideon of Scotland Yard.  B&W, just under an hour each part and quite gritty at times and from the mid '60's.  Guest stars incl. Jack Hedley, Gerald Harper, George Baker, George Cole, Gordon Jackson. A good, well made police procedural.

[profh0011]

"Death of a Doxy (which is one that I don't believe I've ever read) was published in the mid 1960s so maybe there was something in that story that they felt had to have a 1960s setting when they adapted it."

Kari Matchett actually plays 2 parts in the same story!  Briefly, in 2 scenes, she's Lily Rowan, a quiet, serious brunette (or is it redhead?) who's Archie's steady girlfriend, of whom I've read neither has any intention to ever settle down.  But for most of the story she plays Julie Jacquette, a vivacious blonde singer & actress. Between her personality and dialogue, and her fashions, I don't think this would work unless it was set in the mid-60's.

It's amazing the wide range of personality types she plays over the course of this series.

[Ratty]

Just saw Shyamalan's "Devil" movie, and wow. Just wow. Even excusing the premise that one of the people trapped in an elevator is literally Satan. The kind of thing that would be best suited to a weak episode of Night Gallery, but here stretched over a feature-length film.- this was bad. I'll save you the time and just post the "best" scene in the movie.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LZo2oz97Ijg&feature=feedf

Can't argue with THAT empirical evidence I guess.

[Geo (R.I.P.)]

Just chilling with The Chronicles of Narnia Prince Caspian in Blue-Ray, waiting till the next one in the series comes out which is in April on the 8th.

Geo