Thursday, October 4, 2018

Thursday Movie Picks #221: Home Invasion



This being Thursday, it's time for another edition of Thursday Movie Picks, the blogathon run by Wandering Through the Shelves. We're in October, so it's time for Halloween, and the official title of the theme is "Halloween Edition: Home Invasion". Unfortunately, I'm not that into horror movies, and the classic horror movies I can think of don't really involve home invasions, so I had to come up with three movies that fit the theme in a more straightforward dramatic way, leading to the following:

He Ran All the Way (1951). John Garfield plays a man on the run after a botched robbery who escapes into a public swimming pool, where he meets Shelley Winters. The two strike up a conversation and she takes him back to the apartment she shares with her parents and kid brother. Garfield then proceeds to hold everybody hostage until he can make his getaway. Winters falls in love with him, and thinks about escaping with him.

Kind Lady (1951). Ethel Barrymore plays a spinster art collector living in a fashionable London townhouse who runs into a starving artist (Maurice Evans). He sees all the fine art in his house, and concocts a plan to take it over, involving his "sick wife" (Betsy Blair) needing a place to recuperate, which leads them to bring in Angela Lansbury and Keenan Wynn as "caretakers". In Gaslight style, they all try to drive Barrymore crazy while stealing the art. There's an earlier version from 1935 with Aline MacMahon and Basil Rathbone in the Barrymore and Evans roles respectively, but I prefer the 1951 version.

Suddenly (1954). The President of the United States is going to be going on a fishing trip, and his train is stopping in the small northern California town of Suddenly. Sterling Hayden is the town sheriff, in love with widowed mother Nancy Gates, who lives with her father-in-law James Gleason. Her house overlooks the train station, and offers a perfect vantage point for a sniper to try to shoot at the president. Surely enough, in walks a sniper in the form of Frank Sinatra, who takes the house over and waits for the President's train....

5 comments:

joel65913 said...

Good choices and we match on our first picks. Kind Lady is a terrific catch. I've seen both versions this one and the earlier Aline MacMahon one both good movies with little difference though the supporting cast in this one is slightly better.

I thought about using Suddenly but while I thought it was a good film Sterling Hayden was his usual dull self so I moved on.

While He Ran All the Way isn't one of my top favorites of John Garfield's films, I prefer his previous two-Under My Skin and especially The Breaking Point much more, he gives his customary strong performance matched by the rest of the cast.

I'm not much for horror either so like you I had to cast around a bit for choices.

He Ran All the Way (1951)-After a failed stickup during which he kills a cop Nick Robey (John Garfield) ducks into a local public pool house where he strikes up an acquaintance with Peg Dobbs (Shelley Winters). Upon leaving he offers her a cab ride to her home and she invites him in. Discovering he’s pursued he takes Peg and her family hostage leading to a tense standoff holding the police at bay while terrorizing the family. This was the great Garfield’s final film before the stress of being blacklisted lead to his fatal heart attack at only 39.

The Desperate Hours (1955)-On the run after a prison break Glenn Griffin (Humphrey Bogart), his brother Hal (Dewey Martin) and Sam Kobish (Robert Middleton) break into the suburban Indianapolis home of businessman Dan Hilliard (Fredric March) and his family and take them hostage while they wait for Griffin’s moll to show up with loot for a getaway. What is supposed to be only a few hours stretches into nerve jangling days as the woman doesn’t show. William Wyler directed thriller is a tense suspenser. Badly remade in the 80’s.

Cul-de-sac (1966)-George (Donald Pleasance) and his much younger French wife Teresa (Françoise Dorléac) live in an isolated castle on a remote tidal island. American gangster Dickey (Lionel Stander) fleeing a botched robbery with his wounded sidekick Albie (Jack MacGowran) cross the causeway at low tide and take over the castle but then the tables turn. Roman Polanski directed this strange thriller with both dramatic and comic overtones. Leading lady Dorléac was Catherine Deneuve’s sister and a rising international star before she was killed in a car crash the year after this was made.

Dell said...

As usual, I haven't seen any of your picks. I gotta get my old school game up.

Ted S. (Just a Cineast) said...

I was trying to remember the title of the Humphrey Bogart movie, but it's one I've always managed to miss every time it comes up on TCM.

And while you may not know as much about old movies, Wendell, I'm certainly not au courant on newer movies. It doesn't help that the local sixtyplex in our dead mall closed at the end of summer. I'm trying to think where I'd have to go to see new movies.

Birgit said...

We match with the last film! Even though you might get splinters from wooden Sterling Hayden, Frank and 5he rest are quite good and I actually like the kid. I haven’t seen the other 2 but I really want to.

Ted S. (Just a Cineast) said...

I like Sterling Hayden.