This being Thursday, it's time for another edition of Thursday Movie Picks, the blogathon run by Wandering Through the Shelves. This week's theme is "Globetrotting movies", which of course made me think of...
Of course, The Harlem Globetrotters on Gilligan's Island was a TV movie, so not appropriate for today's theme. I haven't seen the 1951 movie The Harlem Globetrotters, so I don't want to use it here. I was able to come up with three movies anyway:
Holiday for Lovers (1959). Clifton Webb and Jane Wyman send their daughter (Jill St. John) off to South America to study art, where she falls in love with an architect's (Paul Henried) son. Webb misunderstands and thinks his daughter has fallen in love with the architect, and doesn't like the idea of a May-December relationship, so he takes the family down to South America to set his daughter straight. By this time, she's started touring the continent, with Webb and family chasing her.
Trade Winds (1938). Joan Bennett is wanted in connection with a murder, and flees the US mainland first to Hawaii and then to various ports of call in Asia. The police, in the form of Ralph Bellamy, are in chase, but also private investigator Fredric March is pursuing her. March finds her, and the two fall in love, complicating matters. Rounding out the chasers is March's secretary Ann Sothern.
The Great Race (1965). Tedious comedy about an early 20th century car rally from New York to Paris, going west, because just putting all the cars on a ferry across the Atlantic wouldn't work. Tony Curtis plays a famous adventurer who enters the race, and his eternal rival, Jack Lemmon, decides to join simply to stop Curtis from winning. Natalie Wood plays a newspaper correspondent who joins in to cover the race.
George Leigh
5 hours ago
3 comments:
I watched the Gilligan's Island TV Movies and even when this came on, I thought Martin Landau's career has gone tit's up. I am certain he would love have loved to forget this. I haven't seen the first 2 films but I enjoyed the Great race with Jack Lemmon doing his best to steal everything but the kitchen sink.
Fun choices.
Those Gilligan's Island movies are rough but from a nostalgic standpoint funny. BTW I've seen the Globetrotters film and it wasn't bad. A rather straightforward chronicle of how they came to be a team.
Holiday for Lovers is fluffy fun with the cast full of pros making it go down easy.
Trade Winds isn't a great film but it's not bad. It was a pivotal one for Joan Bennett though since when she changed from her previous blonde to brunette in it the color change for whatever reason brought her into focus and seemed to sharpen her up. It certainly ushered in the most successful phase of her career.
We match on The Great Race. I'll admit it could have been shorter but I've always gotten a big kick out of it.
I found three that interrelate in one way or another.
The Great Race (1965)-Spoof of old time serials with the hero-The Great Leslie (Tony Curtis) all dressed in gleaming white and his sidekick Hezekiah (Keenan Wynn) going head to head with snidely Professor Fate (Jack Lemmon chewing on every piece of scenery in sight) all in black and his faithful assistant Max (Peter Falk) in a continent spanning motor race from New York to Paris at the beginning of the 20th century. Complicating matters is fellow racer, journalist and suffragette Maggie DuBois (Natalie Wood-never lovelier) who butts heads with Leslie as they head over land and sea to their goal. Shootouts, duels, pie fights and all manner of complications ensue!
Those Magnificent Men in Their Flying Machines (1965)-In 1910 a wealthy British newspaper publisher Lord Rawnsley (Robert Morley) offers 10,000 pounds (about a million today) to the winner of an air race between London and Paris, a great distance at the time. The contest draws an eclectic and eccentric gaggle of fliers and amateurs including Rawnsley’s rebellious daughter Patricia (Sarah Miles) who compete in all forms of airborne crates including hot air balloons!
Those Daring Young Men in Their Jaunty Jalopies (1969)-The 1,500 mile Monte Carlo rally passing through England, Paris, Monaco, Monte Carlo, Monte Gelato Falls, the Treja River, Italy, Åre, Jämtlands and län, Sweden in the 20’s is the setting for this wacky sequel to Magnificent Men in Their Flying Machines with some of the characters returning plus Tony Curtis from The Great Race as a brash American.
Of course Landau would go on to win an Oscar a dozen years later. :-)
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