This being Thursday, it's time for another edition of Thursday Movie Picks, the blogathon run by Wandering Through the Shelves. We've been going through the "Seven Deadly Sins" on the first Thursday of each month, and this time we're up to Sloth. I decided to go in a slightly different way with it:
The House Across the Street (1949). Wayne Morris plays a newspaper editor who pisses off a gangster (Bruce Bennett), causing the publisher (Alan Hale) to demote Morris to the Miss Lonelyhearts column. With the help of a lady journalist, he uses the Miss Lonelyhearts column to bring the gangster to heel. Warner Bros. writers must have had a bout of sloth when they sent this one to the producers, because it's the fourth version of the story in 15 years. It started with Paul Muni in Hi, Nellie!, followed by Ronald Reagan making his screen debut in Love Is on the Air (and moving the story to radio), and third was George Brent in You Can't Escape Forever.
Twist Around the Clock (1961). A music promoter promoting a tired old sound meets a brother/sister team in a small town dancing to the new sound, that being the twist. He takes them to the big city to make twist music popular, and falls in love with the sister, but the boss tries to put the kibosh on that. Several twist music stars appear. This would be a silly enough entry in the genre, but it's made worse/sillier by the fact that it's an almost shot-for-shot remake of Rock Around the Clock.
The Jackals (1967). Vincent Price plays a widower grandfather prospector in 19th century South Africa living with his adult granddaughter. One day, a bunch of bank robbers come from across the "impassable" desert, realize that Oupa (Afrikaans for "Grampa") must have found gold, and decide they want the gold. One of them wants the granddaughter and has a change of conscience. It's not exactly a bad movie, and if it had been an original, it would probably be slightly better remembered as a curiosity in Price's career. However, it's a close remake of the classic western Yellow Sky. How close? The writers gave a writing credit to Lamar Trotti, despite the fact that he died 15 years before the movie was made! Talk about lazy!
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2 comments:
That's a fun way to go with the theme, which was a tough one.
I've seen all three and you're right they are derivative. The first costarring two of the blandest actors of their time period practically evaporated on screen as the scenes ended. Don't they know those two were only meant to be costarred with one of the queens of the studio so she could plow over him on her way to center stage? At least it had Alan Hale for some liveliness.
Yellow Sky was a good tense film the remake is only worth it to see Price in something different at that point.
This was a tough theme. I wove mine together by using one big time sloth-Rip Van Winkle and finding three (very old) films about him.
Rip Van Winkle (1896)-A series of shorts pieced together that tell the Washington Irving tale of layabout Rip Van Winkle (Joseph Jefferson-a star of the stage before during and after the Civil War who spent his later career touring endlessly in this play) who ambles into the Catskills and wakes up 20 years later having slept through the American Revolution! The narrative is choppy but how many films survive from before the turn of the last century?
The Legend of Rip Van Winkle (1905)-Another short-14 minutes. Probably the most innovative version of the Irving classic taking into account the age of the film and what it sets out to do. French film pioneer Georges Méliès (who also plays the lead) uses movable sets and color to set the scene though without title cards it's hard to follow if you're not familiar with the story.
Rip Van Winkle (1914)-This version at 58 minutes follows the story after Rip (played by Thomas Jefferson-son of Joseph Jefferson) awakens from his slumber and reacquaints himself with the world that passed him by include getting to know his daughter Meenie (played by Jefferson’s wife Daisy Jefferson) as well.
This is a unique twist on this theme this week. I have seenThe Jackals and it is not too bad but not that great either. Gosh, one can claim today that mo#t movies are lazy hence all the sequels, prequels and marvel films
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