I'm a sucker for sentimental films, but this one just didn't do anything for me. It was a nice watch but nothing much happened that I cared about. I was hoping it would've had more heart like I Remember Mama, A Tree Grows in Brooklyn or The Bells of St Mary's. The story itself seemed worthy of a film but the movie just plodded along. I think the fault is in the director.

Frederick March was one of the all time great actors, but he didn't really get a chance to shine here. For shining, it's Beulah Bondi who hits a home run with her performance of a rich, snooty and controlling woman.

I thought people were understating the similarities between The Raid and Dredd, and that it would just be the basic premise that was the same. It does go slightly deeper than that, but they're clearly two very different films. While Gareth Evans did joke about needing to rush production of The Raid when the script for Dredd leaked online, I do believe that the resemblance is entirely coincidental, and largely a consequence of restricting action to a single enclosed location.

The Raid opts for a more gritty, realistic approach to its cinematography. Filming fast-paced action on a handheld camera without the assistance of a steadicam often leads to a shaky mess that's hard to watch. Luckily here it is just a stylistic choice, rather than something being used to intentionally hide stuntmen or poor choreography, so the action is still clearly framed, and it's easy to follow what's going on. It does border on being too hectic at times, but it works well overall.

The film really comes into its own when it drops the guns and switches to martial arts. This is when the physical abilities of its actors are on full display, with impressive hand-to-hand sequences that look and feel appropriately brutal. Dialogue is fairly minimal throughout, and with such a simple premise, it's refreshing that there isn't any unnecessary exposition. It does feel like the runtime could've been trimmed to a lean 90 minutes, but cutting any of the action would be a disgrace to the choreographers' excellent work.

Judy Holliday is one unique actress who sadly didn't make that many movies. She won an Oscar for Best Actress for Born Yesterday (1950). Two years later she was hauled in front of House Un-American Activities Committee a victim of McCarthyism and charged with being a communist...What resulted was a two year hiatus from movies which basically stalled her once promising movie career. She only made 9 feature movies where she was prominently featured. I've seen 3 of her films now and plan on watching the rest. Judy Holliday died at 43.

The Marrying Kind is labeled a comedy drama, but it's a very frank look at a young, poor married couple who experience tragedy and end up turning on each other. It was a honest look at marriage especially for Hollywood circa 1952. I was impressed with the screenplay and of course by George Cukor who's one of the great humanist directors. This was Aldo Ray's first film and he's quite believable as a sometimes insecure, jerk of a husband.