Paul C. Dobbs
@steadytiger
Living on Sydney Greenstreet Haunted by Ida Lupino Immigrant Trap drummer
Oh yeah, i forgot, Desert Fury features a KILROY WAS HERE in the wild, but without the picture of him peeping over the wall. I always like to see them. Kilroy and Chad were still pretty big in the 70s when I was a kid
Desert Fury (1947). Attractive cast, dusty desert setting, tangled melodrama, humming Technicolor. But this is less than the sum of its parts. There's an intriguing scenario involving a mother and daughter at odds, a pair of gay racketeers, and a busted-up rodeo star turned deputy sheriff
I never thought I'd say this, but Robert Morley is very good here, showing real range and depth. His actual daughter is in it too, and she is terrific. Poor kid looks just like her dad, and she is clearly being directed line by line, but she has a wild, funny, quite alarming quality of childishness
Outcast of the Islands (1952). This is a great role for Trevor Howard. He's a vain, selfish, out-and-out Empire wrong 'un, oozing neanderthal virility. He grunts, sweats, and his torso glistens. I'd never thought it before, but Howard would have have been a terrifically brutal James Bond
What Ever Happened to Baby Jane (1962). One one level it’s a cartoon, and the central dynamic really isn't much more complicated than Tom and Jerry. But that accentuates the horror when it comes, and it's all held together by those two frighteningly committed performances
Helsinki Airport - the loveliest airport in the world. I had a 12-hour layover here once and I didn't mind at all. It's a brilliant place to lounge or stroll about, very friendly, and you can have a quiet sleep anywhere. Seriously thinking of retiring here
You can't beat Gene Tierney smoking, unless maybe it's Gene Tierney and Vincent Price smoking
Staying in the Adelphi Liverpool, which was once the grandest hotel in the city but now has a sort of crackhouse reputation. It's a brill art deco haunted place eith Overlook vibes
I drink gallons of it whenever I am in the UK. You can’t get squash or anything like it in Korea, and that is one of the biggest downsides of living there for me
Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf (1966). I quite enjoyed this 20 years ago in a voyeuristic, car crash sort of way, but it was hard work this time. No one ever acts the way a sane person would actually act. The characters hardly even seem human. Felt like a bad trip to the zoo
Well, Disclosure Day is great cinema, a really smashing time. I felt like I’d been picked up and carried away by something very powerful, swung about like a doll a few times, then finally set down safely but in a very different place from where I’d started. It is a full on experience
A perfect Sunday afternoon film. And special mention to Michele Carey's hair, which should have had it's own credit. Michele Carey's hair as itself
Assassin (1969). There’s a scene in this with a speedboat circling, moving but going nowhere, with a dead man at the wheel, which is as good a metaphor as you could imagine for cycles of political violence. (Did Alan Sharp nick it for Night Moves? Doubtful. More likely great minds thinking alike)
Green for Danger(1946). This has a scorching opener, a sort of lineup in an operating theatre, doctors and nurses all covered up except for their eyes - those eyes! - with the group quickly revealed to be locked in a vicious sexual web of lust, yearning, and jealousy. Real dark dirty noir
Trouble in Paradise (1932). Just when you think its a bit arch and dated, it comes up sharp, cynical and fresh as a daisy. It’s risque, but classy, like an urbane Benny Hill somehow. What a range on Miriam Hopkins! Devastating in melodrama, her comic flair is riotous here, and startlingly modern
These Three (1936). Everyone's great here, but Miriam Hopkins reminds me why I love films in the first place. A true face, mobile even when it’s still, persuading you that you know this person, that they are *in your life*, and so of course you can and must care inordinately about them. What a star
- You’ve heard of the last straw, haven’t you? - Yes - Well, you're it Obsession (1949). This comes with a scorching hook, a brilliantly staged, and deliciously stagey three-hander between Robert Newton, Sally Gray & Phil Brown. I really must watch more Newton & more Gray. They are magnificent
52 Pick-Up (1986) is concentrated, bottled 1980s. Cheesy synth score, fluorescent titles, garish colours, misogyny. It comes on like To Live And Die In LA, but is not as good. Criterion Channel bills it as “sensationally sleazy, diabolically lurid”, and it is definitely that
Have a look at Leo McKern’s portrait here in the last scene. Brilliant😂. I wonder if this is Joseph Losey winking at us and telling us not to take it all too seriously. Anyway, the ending is absolutely fevered, all melodramatic stops pulled out. Great stuff, and the film really deserves it
Time Without Pity (1957). Real high concept melodrama. Michael Redgrave, first shaky with DTs, then pissed as a fart and struggling to stay conscious, has 24 hrs to save his son from hanging. As premises go that's not bad! He needs something concrete to stay the execution, and my god does he find it
The Bofors Gun (1968). Stagey, claustrophobic squaddie film set mainly in a guard hut where you can almost smell the sweaty socks. There’s precious little camaraderie in this vision of army life, but there is hierarchy - particularly the bully hierarchy that operates among the gunners
Vera Cruz (1954). The thing I always remember about this is the massive shit-eating grin that is never off Burt Lancaster's face and which has never been topped, not even by Jack Nicholson. Also the way Gary Cooper shoots his lame horse in someone's yard and just leaves it there
We got an orchestra going on outside the apartment. They just played Land of Hope and Glory!
