Citizen Rules...Cinemaesque Chat-n-Review
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Probably because he was a ****.
Gideon you're right Sinatra and Reynolds had no chemistry on screen. Off screen I have to think Debbie Reynolds was just to different of a personality for Frank to like.
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Ya but Sinatra's one cool a ****
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I seen a 15 min documentary on the DVD for The Tender Trap called Frank in the 50s.
At the end of it, they said everyone thinks Frank's the coolest
well....except you and my mom. My mom does not like Frank Sinatra! So you're in good company
At the end of it, they said everyone thinks Frank's the coolest
well....except you and my mom. My mom does not like Frank Sinatra! So you're in good company
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I like the sound of your mum. She sounds like a good, right thinking woman. 
TBF, they weren't going to say anything else, were they?
TBF, they weren't going to say anything else, were they?
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The Tender Trap (1955)
Director: Charles Walters
Cast: Frank Sinatra, David Wayne, Celeste Holm, Debbie Reynolds
Genre: Drama with comic & romantic situations
Length: 111 minutes
'Charlie' Frank Sinatra, is a swinging bachelor with a girl on each arm. His long time school buddy 'Joe' David Wayne visits him and then falls for one of his girlfriends. Meanwhile Charlie is casting one of his theater shows and becomes smitten with the young new talent, 'Julie' Debbie Reynolds, who at first want's nothing to do with the man-about-town Sinatra.
This is a good film, it's interesting with good pacing and is insightful to the 1950s mindset of men-women relationships. It might look like a musical rom-com farce, but it's not. It's a drama with light comedy that comes out of real life friction between Joe (David Wayne) who's a married family man and his long time buddy Charlie (Frank Sinatra) who's a bit of a cad with the ladies and has a number of girls that he strings along.
The bright spots in The Tender Trap is Celeste Holm, she really carries her role well as an older woman in New York who's sacrificed marriage for a professional career. Celeste is intelligent and funny in a real way. She's the focal point of the film.
Both Sinatra and David Wayne are very good in this. Frank is born to play the hipster with the swinging bachelor pad and a girl for each day. We see four of his girlfriends and it's interesting how each of them have a different personality and role in his life.
David Wayne is the average 'Joe', that's probably why his character is named Joe. He's full of 50s repression and angst, he want's to change his life but is a family man who can't be a free spirit like his friend Charlie.
Debbie Reynolds is the very young, priggish woman who has her life all planned out and wants to pigeon hole everyone into a neat little box. Somehow with all the beautiful woman in NYC, Sinatra falls for her. To me this is the weak part of the film. I found the character of Julie annoying, immature and no way appealing. I can't buy into the fact that Sinatra's character would pass up someone like Sylvia (Celeste Holm) for Julie.
The film looks great! Being an early Eastman color film, the colors are natural and yet vivid. On the official DVD, the print looks great and is restored. The apartment, the fashions and NYC never looked better!
+
Last edited by Citizen Rules; 01-16-16 at 04:21 PM.
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Betsy's Wedding (1990)
Director: Alan Alda
Writer: Alan Alda
Stars: see below
Genre: Comedy Romance
Length: 94 minutes
It's been a long time since I seen since a crappy film as Betsy's Wedding, what a waste of star talent!
Writer/Director/Star Alan Alda puts everything including the kitchen sink into his hodge-podged movie. We get a plethora of who's who in Hollywood in the early 90's with some very talented people. Most of them get to do nothing interesting in this film.
Alan Alda
Molly Ringwald
Joey Bishop
Ally Sheedy
Joe Pesci
Madeline Kahn
Catherine O'Hara
Burt Young
The film starts with a silly tiger fight scene that turns out to be a dream, this is done several times during the film and adds nothing to the already disembodied film. Joey Bishop appears as a ghost, why? Talented and funny Madeline Kahn acts like a zombie, her skills are wasted. Catherine O'Hara does get to show her talents but she has only a few minutes in this film.
Alan Alda sucks as a director writer, sorry but it does. Though he's actually one of the best characters in the movie and he needs to stay in front of the camera not behind it.
Joe Pesci is also funny as a mobster type, go figure. He's one of the few bright spots in the film.
Ally Sheedy has a larger role and ahhh, she's OK.
What wears thin is the cliche ethnic stereotypes. If I was Italian I would boycott this film.
I swear every old joke in the book is reused. Even poor Molly Ringwald who's lack luster in this..has surprisingly little air time. Once again, Molly plays the unconventional individualist who makes her own wacky clothes, ala Pretty in Pink.
Yup, Molly's at it again making her own wedding dress, good grief Alan Alda write something original well you.
This is my first and last Alan Alda directed/written film. He fooled me once with this inane 94 minutes waste of film and talent, he won't do it again.
Director: Alan Alda
Writer: Alan Alda
Stars: see below
Genre: Comedy Romance
Length: 94 minutes
It's been a long time since I seen since a crappy film as Betsy's Wedding, what a waste of star talent!
Writer/Director/Star Alan Alda puts everything including the kitchen sink into his hodge-podged movie. We get a plethora of who's who in Hollywood in the early 90's with some very talented people. Most of them get to do nothing interesting in this film.
Alan Alda
Molly Ringwald
Joey Bishop
Ally Sheedy
Joe Pesci
Madeline Kahn
Catherine O'Hara
Burt Young
The film starts with a silly tiger fight scene that turns out to be a dream, this is done several times during the film and adds nothing to the already disembodied film. Joey Bishop appears as a ghost, why? Talented and funny Madeline Kahn acts like a zombie, her skills are wasted. Catherine O'Hara does get to show her talents but she has only a few minutes in this film.
Alan Alda sucks as a director writer, sorry but it does. Though he's actually one of the best characters in the movie and he needs to stay in front of the camera not behind it.
Joe Pesci is also funny as a mobster type, go figure. He's one of the few bright spots in the film.
Ally Sheedy has a larger role and ahhh, she's OK.
What wears thin is the cliche ethnic stereotypes. If I was Italian I would boycott this film.
I swear every old joke in the book is reused. Even poor Molly Ringwald who's lack luster in this..has surprisingly little air time. Once again, Molly plays the unconventional individualist who makes her own wacky clothes, ala Pretty in Pink.
This is my first and last Alan Alda directed/written film. He fooled me once with this inane 94 minutes waste of film and talent, he won't do it again.
Last edited by Citizen Rules; 01-16-16 at 09:28 PM.
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Sorry you didn't like it at all, CR. Maybe I'll have to give it another look and see how it's fared, but I liked it.
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I like B budge and silly movies, but Betsy's Wedding wasn't good or even fun, except for the few actors I mentioned. I liked Molly Ringwald in her first 4 major films, but here she was just part of the furniture.
Muriel's Wedding never heard of it but Siskel and Ebert gave it two thumbs up which is good enough for me to add to my watchlist, Thanks
BTW can you guys see the pics in my review now?
Muriel's Wedding never heard of it but Siskel and Ebert gave it two thumbs up which is good enough for me to add to my watchlist, Thanks
BTW can you guys see the pics in my review now?
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Lovely wedding dress, huh?
Notice on the movie poster they altered her dress to make it look more appealing. I don't know why but that seems interesting to me.
Notice on the movie poster they altered her dress to make it look more appealing. I don't know why but that seems interesting to me.
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Three Comrades (1938)
Director: Frank Borzage
Writers: F. Scott Fitzgerald(screen play), Erich Maria Remarque
(novel)
Stars: Robert Taylor, Margaret Sullavan, Franchot Tone, Robert Young
Genre: Drama, War, Romance
Length: 98 minutes
A story of love and friendship centered around the lives of three young German soldiers who find themselves in desperate times during Germany's turbulent years following World War I. The three friends lives would be bleak, if it wasn't for one special woman.
This just might be one of the greatest films that never was. The novel was written by Erich Maria Remarque who also wrote the classic All Quiet On The Western Front. This movie functions almost like a epilogue to his more well known movie.
Equally impressive is, this is the only movie script that American novelist F. Scott Fitzgerald ever wrote.
With all that you would expect Three Comrades to be a well known film, but its not. Mainly do to some flaws, the lead actor Robert Taylor is wooden in his acting. He was a leading man hired for his looks but his charisma and acting ability are lacking. On the other hand Franchot Tone is very personable and has great chemistry with the leading lady Marget Sullavan.
Marget who was in the classic The Shop Around the Corner, plays a different role in this film, as someone who gives all she has to her friends. At one time James Stewart had been mentioned for the leading role, too bad for us that it went to Robert Taylor.
Still the story is a good one, if, you know early 20th century German history. Without that knowledge the hostile street fighting between groups might seem not to make sense. The 1930s film code required that references to the actual name of the Para-Military groups that sprung up in German during the 20s, be removed from the film....The street thugs are in fact the early beginnings of the Nazi party. Robert Young attends secret meetings that put him at odds with the Nazis. His party isn't mentioned by name either, but it's the Communist party.
If you like history, you should watch this. It's not a perfectly made movie but there's a lot to like here.
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It sounds like you enjoyed The Tender Trap a bit more than I did, but I agree that it's a good movie.
Betsy's Wedding (1990)
This is my first and last Alan Alda directed/written film. He fooled me once with this inane 94 minutes waste of film and talent, he won't do it again.
I haven't seen Betsy's Wedding, (and I don't like Molly Ringwald, so I'm not likely to watch it either), but if you decide to give Alan Alda another chance, try watching The Four Seasons (1981). It's been several years since I've seen it, but I remember it being a very good movie with a terrific cast.
Betsy's Wedding (1990)
This is my first and last Alan Alda directed/written film. He fooled me once with this inane 94 minutes waste of film and talent, he won't do it again.
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Pretty in Pink (1986)
Director: Howard Deutch
Writer: John Hughes
Cast: Molly Ringwald, Jon Cryer, Andrew McCarthy, James Spader, Annie Potts, Harrry Dean Stanton
Genre: Comedy, Drama, Romance
A poor girl must choose between the affections of her doting childhood sweetheart and a rich but sensitive playboy.
Pretty in Pink is like a more mature and cynical Sixteen Candles. If Molly was full of teen angst in her first John Hughes movie, here she has an edginess to her, which comes from being an outsider at a rich kids school where all the 'in kids' conform to the latest trends. Andie (Molly Ringwald) and her friend Duckie (Jon Cryer) refuse to conform and are the rebellious individualist. There's a lot more to this film than just a teen comedy, so read on.
One of my favorite scenes and there's a lot of them, is the time Andie spends with her friend Iona (Annie Potts). There's a real sweetness to their relationship and Annie Potts is just great in this role, she's both elliptically funny and very real and touching too.
The prom dress scene is a favorite one.
I can't do a review without mentioning Jon Cryer who does a riotous over the top character Duckie. What makes his character work is he's Andies life long friend and unknown to her, has a secret crush for her. Which leads to heart ache for him, and causes him to suffer in silence.
Andrew McCarthy is the nice, rich guy that just might cross school social lines and date Andie, or will he? Not if his friend and super snobbish Steff, has anything to say about it. It's hard to find another really good-bad snobbish, jerk like the one expertly played by James Spader.
What can I say this film delivers a lot and is so much more than a teen comedy, another fine John Hughes film.
Last edited by Citizen Rules; 01-17-16 at 11:19 PM.
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CR you know that is my favorite teen film... I hope to see it in theatres on Valentine's Day as Cinemark is playing it as part of their "classic" series...
CR you know that is my favorite teen film... I hope to see it in theatres on Valentine's Day as Cinemark is playing it as part of their "classic" series...
It's a good one too. How cool to see it on the big screen, I hope you get to see it.BTW can you guys see my three pics on the review now?
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