1940's Hall Of Fame Part I

Fantasia

Overall, I think the concept of this movie is brilliant. It's imaginative, beautifully animated, and the music is wonderful. Having said that, I think the first half is better than the second half.

My favorite segment is "The Sorcerer's Apprentice", but I also love the "Nutcracker Suite" segment, and the "Dance of the Hours" segment. (I can't help but hear Allan Sherman's "Hello Muddah, Hello Fadduh" in my head while watching the hippos and other animals dancing. )

"Night on Bald Mountain" is also pretty cool, and I like the visuals for the "Toccata and Fugue in D Minor" segment.

My least favorite segment is the "Rite of Spring" segment with the dinosaurs. It isn't as nice visually, and it's kind of boring compared to the rest of the movie. I also think the parts with the conductor talking are unnecessary.

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I think the story maybe could've been a bit more fleshed out, but i think some of your problems are getting into over-explaining territory, some things you've just got to infer for yourself. I mean it's not really as if most of this is ambiguous exactly it's just common sense will tell you. I at least don't like movies feeding everything to me so i personally am not bothered by most of that. Again my biggest problems were:



Glad you liked it anyway

Waterloo Bridge

This is another movie that I hadn't heard of before this HoF, but it sounded great from the little that I read about it, so I was looking forward to seeing it. There are a lot of great movies in this HoF, but this one quickly rose to become one of my favorites. On one hand, this is a beautiful romance movie, but it's also an extremely sad movie.

The chemistry between Vivien Leigh and Robert Taylor was terrific, and that's what made the movie so sad.



Overall, it's a great movie, and in a way, some of these little things make it an amazing movie, but it's also one of the saddest movies too.

It's a 'proper tear jerker', it really is a sad film. I'm glad you liked it I haven't seen it in years so I'm looking forward to seeing it again. I'm a big fan of Vivian Leigh and almost nominated another of her films. But up next is Fantasia, which I've never seen.

Pursued (1947)


Mild spoilers for the movie, I guess.

I don't really have much to say about this one. That said, I can't really find anything wrong with this movie, either. It's an interesting story, if not very deep. Hatfields and McCoys set in frontier country at the beginning of the 20th century. Capable performances from the male leads, but the sister of the family had the best performance, closely followed by the mother.

About the sister, never heard her name clearly throughout the film, thought I heard Thor...which I apparently did? I checked the IMDB page, and apparently they gave the sister a male name for some reason. Anyway, the sister. Going from lovestruck to hatefilled and back, Teresa Wright had the most nuanced performance of the cast, as well as the most outwardly emotional performance. The mother gets some powerful scenes, but she's far more stoic. An unexpected turn when the sister suddenly becomes obsessed with vengence, but as we know that she comes to him in the beginning of the movie, it's somewhat pointless.

The sets were nice, both the studio sets (allways smile fondly when I see a 90 degree corner in the sky of old movies) and the outdoor locations. The scene where Jeb gets ambushed by Adam was nicely shot, and the paralell shot as we follow Jed in the foreground and Adam in the background was really well done.

Overall, a good movie, nicely shot. Maybe not a new favourite, but absolutely worth the watch and I'm glad I saw it. This alone proves to me that I made a good choice entering this HoF. A good start to the 40s HoF, hopefully this will be the standard. Good nom, Camo!

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Glad you liked it . Thor is short for something, it's said in the movie but i can't remember what it is. Thorley or something.

Yaaaaay!!! I've actually begun the HoF. I watched this on Sunday, but didn't have the time to do a write up. Good movie. Next, I think it's gonna be either Rope or Arsenic and old lace. Heard lace's a comedy, so am a bit suspicious about it (don't go into comedy very much, been burned too many times). Looking forward to watch Thief again to see if it's as good as I remember.

Right, ok. Heard everything from Floor to Lore to even whore once, but couldn't really be sure. Only got it confirmed after I saw the credits. But ok, Thorly. Was really annoying, so good that got cleared up. Thanks

And there came my 800th up rep. Thank you, guys!

(and you Sean, who gave the 800th)

801!

Now it's 802!

5 rewatches and 5 new watches left for me. Thinking of a rewatch next, perhaps How Green Was My Valley or Rope.

First thing I'm gonna do after watching Pursued is to read Camo's and GB's Spoilers!!

Didn't have Pursued at my library but they did have Waterloo Bridge and Little Foxes. I actually wanted to wait to the end for Cricket's nom. It just seemed like the ideal one to end it all with a bang. But considering how I came in with a "blind pick" and I've yet to go in any planned order -- I am happily running "blind".

I am halfway through Shadow of a Doubt at home and about halfway with Thief of Bagdad on dailymotion. So those should be coming up very soon.

Oh, and congrats Clazor on starting the HOF ANNND on your 800th rep!! YAYYYY

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Arsenic and Old Lace is a comedy, but it's a dark comedy. It's not like the kind of comedy films that come out nowadays. I hate most of the recent comedy films, but Arsenic and Old Lace is one of my favorite movies.

About to watch Laura. Just wondering is Destiny still in this? Going to watch it anyway because i've been meaning to for ages, just curious.

Laura

The only other Preminger i've seen is Anatomy of a Murder which is great but i honestly think this was better. As much as i loved Anatomy i felt it was a bit too long, even just 20 minutes less and there wouldn't be those gaps were i was left uninterested. Laura on the other hand was nice, short and riveting for every minute of its runtime. This was really not what i was expecting at all, i knew nothing about the story but for whatever reason i was under the impression this was going to be a more dark, cynial, serious film and i had a feeling Laura would be a femme-fatale.She wasn't that far off weirdly, of course she wasn't one but the results were similar: all men seemed to fall for her and ended up acting uncharacteristically crazy over her, the difference being that it wasn't intentional on her part; they were sucked in by her endearing qualities as opposed to the usual dark, mysterious, intenionally seductive femme fatales. Great performance by Tierney, very likable despite never being exactly sure if she is really as nice and good as she usually acts.

It was interesting telling the story the 'Citizen Kane way' at first with the central character dead and all we have to rely on is the recollections of people who knew her. This added an extra bit of intrigue to that formula since the people telling the stories about her are suspects in her murder. I wouldn't really call it "an unreliable narrator" because it is clear that these were how the events happened, but i at least was wondering when Waldo was telling it if this was an accurate represantion of what happened. I think that was one of the things i missed most when Laura returned, i thought we'd get Shelbys versions of events in this type of setting rather than after we already knew she was alive. The thing that improved the most was the mystery, while it had been intriguing up to that point it felt secondary to us getting to know the characters but as soon as Shelby answered the phone and was clearly not surprised to find out she was alive it really ramped up the mystery. Good ending i don't think it was amazing but it was well put together and Clifton Webb was great in that final scene.

The best things about this were definitely the dialogue and the characters. Waldo was without a doubt the best character, sorry but if you don't agree you are wrong. He was just so unbelievably cool while not being cool at the same time and i don't know how that is possible when he was a slighty eccentric, distinguished gentleman character. I loved how he acted like he wasn't a suspect in this even though he knew he was, he just wasn't having it, completely unphased by the detective; almost acting like he was purely helping the detective investigate this almost in a partner rolerather than attempting to clear his name as a suspect. The best example of his cool-unphasedness was when the detective clearly implies that Waldo is a suspect again because he was so eager for Shelby to be arrested then Waldo just nonchalantly goes "ok fine, now we are having a party for Lauras return". My god when he started threatening/analyzing the detective it just killed me. As well as how intriguing and hilarious he was, he was also surprisingly sympathetic. I felt bad knowing how crazy he was about Laura knowing she didn't have the same feelings and the clear fact that he didn't feel as if he could compete with someone like Shelby. Best character

I want to praise Dana Andrews here, particularly for his performance before Laura returned. In alot of similar movies to this the person who is playing the detective who truthfully should be as objective as possible and more of an observer often injects alot of emotion or extra character to his performance; i'm not opposed to this since it can work really well. But when it's not a PI or someone directly involved with the case it's nice to see a stern detective whose only objective is to find out what happened. I'm glad that his deeper involvement with his falling for Laura came about so close to her returning and that he still largely acted as stern even though his role was conflicted by this point. When i saw Vincent Price was in this my excitement definitely improved. I've only seen him in about five films, most of them i think i'd find terrible if he wasn't in them. He's a great presence and i never don't fully enjoy watching him. I was a bit disappointed with his role at first; he was as charming as usual but his character was a bit dull, thankfully he greatly improved once Laura came back. Judith Anderson who i thought was excellent in both Pursued and Rebecca was the most forgettable character in this, she wasn't bad but i kept forgetting she was even in it until she appeared on screen.

Great film. I hope Destiny is still in because this will most likely finish high on my list. Five left for me. Going to re-watch Castle of Cagliostro for the Animation HOF first though.

Using this post as a bookmark. Camo was nice enough to send me links to all the reviews I have missed the last couple of days. Obviously his nom will get a bump from me because he is the only one that cares.

Watched Murderers Among Us last night. I will get something up for that today or tomorrow.

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so pissed that i couldn't find a gif or clip of stringer saying "it's all in the game" haha

I'm going to attempt to watch these and add to the discussion. It'll be laid back though, so if I don't end up finishing them all, no stress. I said this in the HoF Organization thread but my plan is to basically participate in HoF's as best I can but not join them, so I'm not worried about finishing. I think it's best, for now, to just participate when I feel compelled to, because that means no pressure, which is best for me and none of you will have to worry either.

I'll admit cinema of the 40's is not a strong area for me, so I think watching some films from that decade will help broaden my horizons. Of the films nominated I've only seen Rope, Arsenic and Old Lace, probably Fantasia when I was younger, and Laura. The last of which I rewatched just last week. I like each of those films, especially Arsenic and Old Lace. And of those, I'm most keen on revisiting Rope.

Like I said, Laura was a rewatch for me. As a horror fan, the most interesting thing about it for me was Vincent Price being in a non-horror film. We all know him from House on Haunted Hill and The Abominable Dr. Phibes, but perhaps only Citizen Rules and GB remember him as the guy from Laura. Pretty cool in my opinion, and he gives a great performance. Actually, the whole lot did. That might have been the best thing about it for me. The subtle eccentricity of the characters made it feel a bit more unique within the canon of film noir (though film noir has also never been a huge part of my appetite, so maybe that's a misjudgment), and the actors pulled that eccentricity off wonderfully. My favorite character was probably Dana Andrews' character. Super cool detective, typical of noir it seems, is still pulled off so well here.

I said film noir has never been a huge part of my appetite, because in my teenage years as I was starting to really exploring cinema, film noir would - I hate to say this - often bore me. So watching this was a fairly fresh experience. I have found that as I grow older, I am starting to appreciate noir a lot more than I ever did. This has probably been the best viewing within that genre I've yet had, though make no mistake, I'm sure even better watches (and rewatches) will happen. Which is part of why I gave it an incredibly solid four stars with a plus, but not any higher.

+

We have let Goodies vote when she has finished in the past. I will certainly open that up to the group again if you finish Swan.