GBGoodies 2015 Movie Logbook

BTW, I have two more Noir movies to watch for the Noir HoF, then I'll be able to start full force with the 1965 movies. I think I have about 20-25 movies on my 1965 watchlist.

Ha! You need a Metric day....It's an old Saturday Night Live skit.

Sweet Smell of Success (1957) - I watched this movie for the Noir HoF. It's one that I haven't seen before, so it was a first-time watch for me.

Powerful columnist J.J. Hunsecker, (Burt Lancaster), wants to break up a relationship between his sister Susan, (Susan Harrison) and musician Steve Dallas (Martin Milner). He makes a deal with press agent Sidney Falco, (Tony Curtis), who wants to get his clients mentioned in J.J.'s, column. When Falco fails to break up the couple, he and J.J. come up with a scheme to plant a false rumor about Dallas to ruin his reputation. The plan doesn't go as expected when Dallas stands up to J.J., and things quickly spiral out of control.

This movie has a different feel than some of the other noir movies because it's not about the gangsters, but it's about power and greed in the behind-the-scenes world of fame. Burt Lancaster and Tony Curtis both give top-notch performances, while Susan Harrison and Martin Milner are both impressive in supporting roles.

The story was interesting, although it was a bit predictable at times, but the only likable character in the movie is Milner's Steve Dallas, especially when he stands up to J.J. Without giving away any spoilers, I have mixed feelings about the ending, specifically about what happens to Falco.

This is a good movie, but it wasn't my favorite of the noir films. (Although I think I'm beginning to like Tony Curtis more and more every time I see him in a movie that I've never seen before.)

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The Set-Up (1949) - I watched this movie for the Noir HoF. It's one that I haven't seen before, so it was a first-time watch for me. After reading the synopsis of the movie, I intentionally left this for last because it's about boxing, which I hate, so I had low expectations for this movie. (Nothing against the movie itself. Boxing is just not my thing.)

Stoker Thompson, (Robert Ryan), is a boxer who is at the end of his career. His manager Tiny, (George Tobias), makes a deal with a mobster that Stoker will "take a dive" in an upcoming fight. Tiny is so sure that Stoker will lose that he doesn't tell Stoker that the match is a set-up. Stoker finds out about the set-up during the fight, but he refuses to "take a dive", and continues fighting.

As expected, this wasn't one of my favorite films, but that's mainly because I tended to lose interest during the boxing scenes. However I liked the story about the boxer refusing to back down. This is a much more straight-forward story than most of the noir movies. It doesn't have all the twist and turns of the other movies. If you like boxing movies, give it a chance despite my rating.

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I have Sweet Smell of Success on my watchlist and wonder if you not loving it is a good sign for me.

Definitely give it a chance. It's a good movie, just not one of my favorites, but I have pretty unique taste in movies.

The Tunnel of Love (1958) - After watching Pickup on South Street, I wanted to see another Richard Widmark movie, so I decided to pick a comedy that showed a different side of him.

August 'Augie' Poole, (Richard Widmark), and his wife Isolde, (Doris Day), have been unsuccessfully trying to have a baby, so they go to the Rock-a-Bye adoption agency to try to adopt a baby. Their neighbors Dick and Alice Pepper, (Gig Young and Elisabeth Fraser), have three children and another one on the way, however Dick criticizes Augie for being too serious, and even encourages him to cheat on his wife. Through a series of mishaps and miscommunications, Augie ends up taking Estelle Novick, (Gia Scala), the agent from the Rock-a-Bye adoption agency to dinner, and he wakes up alone in a hotel room the next morning. Months later, when the adoption agency tells the Pooles that they are getting a baby, the situation gets even more complicated when they begin to suspect that the baby is Augie's child.

This movie is predictable, as most romantic-comedies are, but it's a fun movie. It's a nice change of pace for Widmark, and I liked him in a lighter role. He had nice chemistry with Doris Day, but not quite as good as her chemistry with either Rock Hudson or James Garner.

This is not the best movie for either of the two stars, or the best rom-com, but it's a nice, light movie that has some fun scenes and funny lines that make it worth watching.

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How to Murder Your Wife (1965) - Stanley Ford, (Jack Lemmon), is a happy bachelor, until he gets drunk one night at a bachelor party, and marries Mrs. Ford, (Virna Lisi), the girl who pops out of the cake. When he sobers up the next morning, he wants to get a divorce, but she refuses. However Stanley is also a successful cartoonist, who writes a secret agent comic strip, and he uses his comic strip to vent his frustrations by plotting her murder in the comic strip. When Mrs. Ford sees the comic strip, she disappears without a trace, and Stanley is arrested for her murder.

This is one of my favorite Jack Lemmon movies. It combines fantasy and comedy in a very funny movie. The courtroom scene is priceless. Jack Lemmon is wonderful in this movie, and Terry-Thomas as Charles Firbank, Stanley loyal butler, Eddie Mayehoff as Harold Lampson, Stanley's lawyer, and Claire Trevor as Edna Lampson, Harold's wife are also fantastic as well.

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That Funny Feeling (1965) - Tom Milford, (Bobby Darin), is a successful publishing executive. He literally bumps into Joan Howell, (Sandra Dee), on the street several times, and then he asks her out on a date. Joan works as a maid cleaning other people's apartments. At the end of their date, instead of going home to her apartment, she pretends that her client's home is her home, and she gets dropped off at her client's apartment. The problem is that she has never met the client, so she doesn't know that her client is actually Tom, and the apartment she goes to is actually his apartment. Surprisingly, Tom doesn't tell her who he is, but instead, he temporarily moves in with his friend Harvey Granson, (Donald O'Connor), and goes along with her lies until he can figure out what's going on.

This movie is one of my favorite rom-coms. Bobby Darin and Sandra Dee are wonderful together, which makes sense since they were actually married in real life. The movie is somewhat predictable, but that doesn't take anything away from its charm. Surprisingly even with Bobby Darin and Donald O'Connor, this movie is not a musical, although Bobby Darin does sing the theme song.

I highly recommend this wonderful movie.

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Would you say that That Funny Feeling is your top recommendation from 1965?

No arguing your opinion of Where Love has Gone...it's a silly movie that produces a lot of unintentional giggles. As I mentioned in my review of the film, Bette Davis publicly stated that the only reason she agreed to do the movie was to pay for her daughter's wedding.

I loved That Funny Feeling. Sandra Dee is good fun to watch. She made a lot of really entertaining movies. At least 2 of them with her husband Bobby Darrin. Maybe they even made more.

I still have a lot of movies on my 1965 watchlist, but as of right now, That Funny Feeling is definitely at the top of my list.

But you also have to keep in mind that I absolutely love rom-coms, so I would put it above a lot of classic movies like The Sound of Music and The Great Race which I also love. (As an example, my top movie for 1963 was Sunday in New York.)

If you like rom-coms, it's one of the best.

I think Bobby Darin and Sandra Dee made three movies together. Come September (1961), If a Man Answers (1962), and That Funny Feeling (1965). I like all three of them, but That Funny Feeling is definitely my favorite of the three movies.

I looked up Come September and I seen it. I forget titles pretty easily. I'm going to have to do a Sandra Dee month.

I was really hoping that Where Love has Gone was going to be a better movie. I haven't seen DeForest Kelley in much outside of "Star Trek", so I was looking forward to this movie because it sounded like a good movie from the description.

Yeah, I have the same problem sometimes. I keep a section on my watchlist of movies I've seen, but sometimes when I look at the watched list a few weeks later, I can't remember which movie is which. Usually if I look up the titles on IMDB or Wikipedia it helps to match up the movies and their titles.

At least you keep a list. I don't, and I've been seriously into films for over 12 years. I have no idea what I watch unless somebody post about it and it rings a bell.

I've only been keeping a list for the past few years, so anything older than that is still a mystery to me.

I hear ya...The other day I was trying to figure out the name of a movie I had watched a week before. I could not remember it...So I went to my reviews and found the name that way!