Here's a couple I watched a week or two back and finally wrote up Othello aka The Tragedy of Othello: The Moor of Venice (1951) +
Shall I put out the light
and then,
put out the light?
Ain't no Shakespeare like an Orson Welles Shakespeare cuz an Orson Welles Sha-- "the rest of the lyric."
Welles' penchant for excellent, palpable cinematography is once more confirmed and sealed. It almost seems like a speech in a Court Room, to save
their valuable time, declare a ruling: it's f@ckin understood.
This is my third Shakespearian adaptation by Welles,
Falstaff; Chimes at Midnight and
Macbeth having blown me away cinematically.
While watching this, I was so enamored with Micheál MacLiammóir's machinations believing him the best I've seen, and realized, shit, I've only seen two. I looked at others, snatched up Ian McKellen playing Iago - I HAD to watch his soliloquy with a slumbering Roderigo because I utterly ADORE the man.
Anyways I am so loving Welles in this genre.
Day of the Outlaw (1959) Vic, General Store Owner: I don't hold for killin'. Blaise Starrett: You don't have to... as long as you got somebody to do it for you. Bit of an old fart moment here. Some short time after that brilliant deluge of amazing westerns to be discovered and revisited during the Western Countdown, I watched this. And utterly forgot it or to mark it off my List. I came across it and thought: f@ck, I NEED to see this.
It took me almost two-thirds into it, during the forced dancing with the outlaws, that it dawned on me that i had. But my silly ass couldn't remember the ending, so I enjoyed that.
I enjoyed the tense playout between the steadfast Robert Ryans, who had won his lands by dealing with previous outlaws, and Burl Ives. He amazes me in the Westerns I've recently seen him in. And this is another excellent performance by him. (yeah, yeah, if it's so great, why'd you forget? Um, I told you, old fart moment.)
Wearing a stolen Union Officers uniform, a bullet in his chest, a hefty amount of stolen money, and soldiers hot on his and his rag-tag group of dirty sh#ts and one naive kid. Played by the lesser-known second son of Ozzie & Harriet, David Nelson.
The only thing keeping the gang from venting their stress by sating their urges on the few women in this tiny town is Ives' ruling. Problem? He'll be dead from the bullet wound very soon.
Thunder Road (1958) ++
Robert Mitchum started a Studio. This is the first film in that Studio, with his son James playing a much younger brother, and rather well. Mitchum plays a moonshine runner in eastern Tennessee and Kentucky. Using the actual routes and buying the cars of moonshiners in North Carolina for the film.
Mitchum's Lucas Doolin knows he'll one day get caught or crash, and he's fine with it because what he does best, he does behind the wheel, and he isn't giving that up. Not for the feds looking to shut moonshining down, and sure as sh#t not for a muscling gangster looking to strong-arm his way into taking over every moonshiner in the area.
There's a review on IMDb raving about this as an excellent Drive-In movie of the fifties. And it is true—a great Drive-In movie with action, a cigarette dangling Robert Mitchum hot rodding and kicking serious @ss.
My minor critique is the not so well done cinematography. It is on the sloppy side, with conflicting camera shots at the quieter moments of this lower-budget film.
Otherwise, I would easily rate it higher. Still, I DID enjoy watching this and would like to again.