This being Thursday, it's normally time for another edition of Thursday Movie Picks, the blogathon run by Wandering Through the Shelves. This week looks at one of the seven deadly sins -- I think all seven have been picked for various points during the year. The first of the seven is lust. The Production Code tamped down a bit on lust, but I was still able to come up with three movies that fit the bill:
Lust for Life (1956). OK, I'm cheating a bit, since this isn't about sexual lust. But with the recent passing of Kirk Douglas, I had to pick it. Douglas plays famed painter Vincent Van Gogh, who was born in the Netherlands, worked for a time in Belgium, and eventually wound up in the south of France, where his likely mental illness overtook him. But he painted some brilliant paintings along the way. Douglas got a Best Actor nomination, while Anthony Quinn picked up his second Supporting Actor statuette as fellow painter Paul Gauguin.
The Lusty Men (1952). Robert Mitchum plays a rodeo rider retired through injury, who returns to his home town and starts to mentor Arthur Kennedy, who is married to Susan Hayward. She doesn't want her husband to go into rodeo because she doesn't want him to wind up like Mitchum's character, but men will be men and all three go off on the rodeo circuit together. OK, not much sexual lust here either, but the title fits.
Safe in Hell (1931). Finally we get sexual lust, and have to go back to a pre-Code to do it. Dorothy Mackaill plays the girlfriend of a sailor (Donald Cook) who turns to prostitution to make ends meet while her boyfriend is away. One of her clients attacks her and she kills him in self-defense. To protect her, Cook takes her to a Caribbean island that doesn't have an extradition treaty with the US. The only problem is, all the men on the island start lusting after Mackaill.
MEL BROOKS AT 97
7 hours ago
5 comments:
I LOVE The Lusty Men!! I think its Mitchum's best performance, not as flashy as Night of the Hunter but completely lived in and real. Both Susan Hayward and Arthur Kennedy match his fine work and Nick Ray's direction keeps the focus of the story tight.
It easy to see why Lust for Life was a passion project for Kirk. Not only because of the physical resemblance, which is striking, but the role is something that allowed him to take his intensity in another direction. It's a good film though not one of my favorites of his work.
Safe in Hell is a terrific little film, Dorothy Mackaill should be better known.
Only one of mine deals with the carnal side of lust as well.
Lust for Gold (1949)-In the 1880’s Arizona drifter Dutchy Walz (Glenn Ford) and his buddy Wiser (Edgar Buchanan) suspect two men know the location of a gold mine. Tracking them they shoot the pair after which Walz turns on Wiser and kills him as well. Heading to Phoenix with a large stash of nugguts word quickly spreads and shopkeeper Julia Thomas (Ida Lupino) wheedles herself into Walz affections without mentioning her marriage to Pete (Gig Young) in the hopes of getting her hands on the loot. Eventually all turn on each other in their “Lust for Gold”.
The Bad and the Beautiful (1952)-In his lust for power unscrupulous movie producer Jonathan Shields (Kirk Douglas) ruthlessly claws his way to the top of the studio system by discovering, using and discarding movie star Georgia (Lana Turner), director Fred Amiel (Barry Sullivan) and writer James Lee Bartlow (Dick Powell) along the way.
Lolita (1962)-British professor Humbert Humbert (James Mason) relocates to the American suburbs, renting a room from lonely widow Charlotte Haze (Shelley Winters). He finds himself lustfully drawn to Charlotte’s teenage daughter Lolita (the recently departed Sue Lyon) doing whatever necessary including marrying her mother to remain close to the nymphet leading to his downfall. Stanley Kubrick directed his own adaptation of the Nabokov novel.
Nice to meet you, Ted! ☺ Lust For Life was a great film. R.I.P. Kirk Douglas. The other two I'm not familiar with, but they sound interesting. I see most people are going with classic films. It's my first time participating and I went contemporary.
I picked Lust For Life as a special pick because it doesn't really fit but I wanted to pay tribute to the great Kirk Douglas.
Lust for Life is popular this week and I've never seen it. Clearly I'm missing out.
I am glad Kirk is getting the love this week. I think Lust for Life fits perfectly because Van Gogh had a lust for painting and it showed. I have not seen the Mitchum film nor the last one which sounds great...poor Dorothy. She is in a bit of a pickle being stuck on an island with all these men..yikes!
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