What Was the Last Movie You Watched?

IMO The Thursday Murder Club was a delight to watch the four veterans ply their trade in a charming story. It was a senior Agatha Christie with jokes that could not have been pulled off by a lesser cast.

The Brits are the best of these types of mysteries. I think it must be in their genetic makeup. I hope there's a follow-up, but it might be a challenge to get that crew together again.

I couldn't help noticing how much better suited Helen Mirren and Pierce Brosnan were in this film than they were in the series Mobland, which was fairly a dud but for Tom Hardy's contribution.
 

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Fallen Angel (1945)

Otto Peminger directed this classic noir tale of seduction, double dealing, and murder. The impressive cast includes Dana Andrews, Alice Faye, and Linda Darnell, along with well cast character roles for Charles Bickford, John Carradine, and Percy Kilbride. The excellent score was by David Raksin, and photography by Joseph LaShelle.

The story opens with a now familiar noir trope of a drifter (Andrews) landing in a small country town where he winds up in a small diner. Bu the diner’s sultry waitress (Darnell) has not shown up for work in a few days, and the cafe’s love sick owner is worried that she won’t come back. When she does return, the drifter falls for her. But the waitress is a bit of a siren, and taunts the drifter that he hasn’t the wherewithal to marry her and provide her a home.

The drifter hatches a plan to marry a wealthy single town’s girl (Faye), then use the money he gets from her to dump her and run away with the waitress. This all sets up a few story twists, followed by a gratifying ending.

This is a second watch for me, and although Fallen Angel is enjoyable prime classic noir, the important relationship between the drifter and the wealthy town girl never felt well developed-- like it was sprung into the story. How and why did she fall in love with this no account guy? And how did it happen so fast?

After some research it turns out that Alice Faye had accepted the role on the conditions that she star with Andrews, 20and that she would chose and sing the film’s theme song. Turns out that studio head Darryl Zanuck was grooming

Linda Darnell to be a big star, so he cut many of Faye’s scenes in order to feature Darnell. In addition Faye’s singing that was supposed to be the theme song --”Slowly”-- was cut, and put later in the film playing on the juke box! But the absence of some key scenes with Faye and Andrews was what made their relationship be so incongruous.

The film music was beautifully composed by David Raksin, who had the year before written the song “Laura”, the popular theme song for the movie of the same name the year before. On a personal note, when I returned to the music business in 1978, I stayed for several weeks at a previous band member’s home in Studio City, near Hollywood. I was astonished to learn that the house had been built and previously occupied by David Raksin, and the studio where I stayed on the property was the same studio where he composed much of his music, including “Laura”. I was proud to have had a coincidental brush with the great songwriter!

Available on YouTube.

Doc’s rating: 6/10
 
I watched The Daytrippers last night. About a woman who finds a seeming love letter to her husband and drags her entire family into the city where he works to confront him. It was mildly amusing, a little dated (from late 90s).
 
katlupe said:
Rebecca 1940 2 hr. 10 min. Free on YouTube
Starring Lawrence Olivier, Joan Fontaine and George Sanders
I read this book a few times in my life and had seen the movie but long ago. I enjoyed it and would recommend it.
Click to expand...
It was Hitchcock's first film in America. A very good picture in which Joan Fontaine was perfectly cast. Judith Anderson was chilling as Mrs. Danvers, Manderley's housekeeper. It's interesting that the deceased wife, Rebecca, was never shown.

Selznik wanted to put in some trite elements to the film, but Hitchcock usually got around that by shooting only the minimum amount of scenes so that the story couldn't be altered-- a trick that he learned to do so that some editor couldn't change the movies he directed before Hitchcock achieved full control in later films.
 
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