Now Screening - What Are You Watching Right Now?

[Macca]

lol, not seen it of late.. i doubt frankie would have been great, even when younger, in that role.

good film and the 4k really does it justice

worth a read especially the contrast between what the critics said on release and what they say now. Any idiot could see that it would become a classic from the first time they watched it - except the 'experts' of course.

Would have needed some more re-writes for a 70 year old Sinatra to work in it I think. Although a similar film in which an old, retired cop defeats the baddies with cunning and experience, rather than physical heroics, might be a good watch.

[struth]

To Have and Have Not, 1944....




Humphrey Bogart and Lauren Bacall fell in love during production. Director Howard Hawks afterward said that it was actually Bacall's character Marie (Slim) that Bogart had fallen for, "so she had to keep playing it the rest of her life." However, it has also been said that Hawks---who was a notorious womanizer and who had a fling with Dolores Moran during the shooting of the film--was jealous and frustrated that Bacall had fallen for Bogart and not for Hawks himself. He even threatened to sell her contract to Monogram, a lowly Poverty Row studio.

[walpurgis]

To Have and Have Not, 1944....

Great classic.

[struth]

Same year, same Star.. Bogey.... Passage to Marseille, 1944.. a similar cast to casablanca




During filming, Lauren Bacall was brought to the set in order to gauge her chemistry with Humphrey Bogart, with whom she would soon be co-starring in To Have and Have Not (1944). This was the famous duo's first meeting, though it would be months before their romance began.

Warner Bros. built a full-scale Merchant Marine ship in three months, modeled after the French ship Ville de Nancy.

Although exotic locales were called for, principal photography by cinematographer James Wong Howe actually took place at the Los Angeles County Arboretum and Botanic Garden in Arcadia, California, with additional location shooting in Victorville, California.

[struth]

Bogey again with... The Enforcer, 1951...




The death of the "Joe Rico" character in a fall from a building parallels the real-life death (in 1941) of Abe Reles (aka "Kid Twist"), an underworld killer whose arrest the previous year led authorities first to discover the existence of the organization popularly dubbed "Murder Inc." in the newspapers. Reles, in order to avoid execution in the electric chair, agreed to testify against the organization after submitting to a police interrogation about it, which famously took a full two weeks to complete, so exhaustive were his recollections. However, he never appeared on the stand, dying --after falling or being pushed out of a window in the hotel where he was staying---the day before he was due to appear. The film depicts Rico's death as a tragic accident, but it is more than likely that Reles' death was murder--one which, furthermore, almost certainly had the collusion of corrupt police officers, although this was never proved.

[struth]

My Fellow Americans, 1996...




In his memoirs, Garner wrote that he enjoyed working with Lemmon but felt the director "was a self appointed genius who didn't know his ass from second base and Jack and I both knew it."

This was originally supposed to be a Walter Matthau/Jack Lemmon movie with the role of Matt Douglas written for Matthau. However, due to illness, Matthau pulled out and was replaced by James Garner.

[Barry]

Great classic.

Agreed - it's probably my favourite Bogart film.

[struth]

classic crime caper with.... Charley Varrick, 1973..

[struth]

classic crime caper with.... Charley Varrick, 1973..

fell asleep watching this so will watch it again... after all its been a year

[struth]

The Thing, 1982... 4k bluray.




It has become a tradition in British Antarctic research stations to watch The Thing (1982) as part of their Midwinter feast and celebration held every June 21.

The film is considered a benchmark in special make-up effects. The effects were created by Rob Bottin, who was only 22 when he started the project.

Unused music composed for this film was later used by Ennio Morricone in Quentin Tarantino's The Hateful Eight (2015). Ironically, Morricone's Thing score was nominated for a Razzie for worst score, while his score for Hateful Eight won him an Oscar.

According to John Carpenter, he takes all his failed movies pretty hard, but the film's initial negative reception disappointed him the most. Not only was it a box-office bomb but critics panned its gory effects, tone, and characters. Vincent Canby, called it "too phony looking to be disgusting. It qualifies only as instant junk". Dave Kehr wrote that it was "hard to tell who's being attacked, and hard to care." Likewise Roger Ebert was disappointed by the "superficial characterizations and the implausible behavior" and dismissed the film as nothing more than an Alien (1979) knockoff. Carpenter was particularly upset when Christian Nyby, the director of the original The Thing from Another World (1951), publicly denounced Carpenter's version, saying, "If you want blood, go to the slaughterhouse. All in all, it's a terrific commercial for J&B Scotch." In response to the commercial bombing of the film, the studio canceled the multi-picture deal they had with Carpenter who noted that his career would have been different if the film had been successful. Not surprisingly, he was extremely relieved when the film enjoyed a rich cult success following its home video release along with the critical re-evaluation it received.