So Dear to My Heart is a combination of live action and animation that Disney released after their first such effort, Song Of The South. While that film was ingratiating chiefly due to the entertaining stories Uncle Remus tells, both the live action and the sparse animated sequences in this one fall flat. The live action stuff just isn’t terribly interesting (What? Danny the black sheep ran away again? Yawn. I’ll go right out and look for him in the swamp. Again.) and the animated stuff is forgettable pap that doesn’t satisfactorily advance the farm boy/sheep love story we are all here to see. Continue reading “So Dear to My Heart (1948)”
Category: 1940s
Captain America (1944)
The best thing you can say about this old-time serial is that you sure do get a lot of old-time serial for your buck. Of course, after sitting through it for about ten minutes of its 244 minutes, it becomes quite clear that the worst thing you could say about this old-time serial is that you sure do you get a lot of old-time serial for your buck. Continue reading “Captain America (1944)”
Double Indemnity (1944)
You don’t have to go any further than the opening credits of this one to know that it’s one of the titans of film noir. Based on a novel written by James M. Cain (The Postman Always Rings Twice), the film was directed by Billy Wilder (Sunset Boulevard) with a screenplay by Wilder and Raymond Chandler (The Big Sleep). The only thing you may wonder about is that it stars Fred MacMurray. If you only remember Fred from his days inventing Flubber and advising My Three Sons what to do about their gender confusion, you’ll be pleasantly surprised that Fred makes a very convincing murderer, schemer, and dude who was a little too smart for his own good. Continue reading “Double Indemnity (1944)”
Roughly Speaking (1945)
Any doubt you may have had that you were in for one of those multi-generational epics about some woman who was either tough as nails and persevered through years of hardship or how she became tough as nails as a result of said hardship is laid to rest as soon as you get a gander at the Bride of Frankenstein coiffeur that adorns star Rosalind Russell for the second half of this too lengthy endeavor about not very much. Continue reading “Roughly Speaking (1945)”
Christmas in Connecticut (1945)
Barbara Stanwyck plays Elizabeth Lane, a gal who writes a column for a magazine extolling the virtues of a traditional home in the country and who provides recipes and babbles about her family. The funny part (not ha-ha funny of course) is that she lives in the city, has a Hungarian chef named Felix do all the cooking, and doesn’t have a family beyond the stuffy architect suitor (John) she loathes. Her editor knows all this, but her publisher (Sydney Greenstreet) doesn’t and would fire her in a minute if he ever found out.
The movie begins with two sailors on a raft with little food. If you threw a priest and a hooker in there with them, you’d have the makings of a pretty good joke, but as it is, this is merely all set up for Liz’s big Christmas problem. Continue reading “Christmas in Connecticut (1945)”
The Bells of St. Mary’s (1945)
In this sequel to Going My Way Bing Crosby returns in his role as an out of control, play by his own rules, stick it to the man priest, Father O’Malley. O’Malley is the guy the Church sends in when everyone else has failed! He’s their final option! This time, all our souls are saved!
In this tale, O’Malley is appointed interim commissioner of St. Mary’s, a parochial school where things are way sucky. Bing arrives and the housekeeper informs him that the last priest got carted off in an ambulance or something because the nuns ran roughshod all over his candy ass. Continue reading “The Bells of St. Mary’s (1945)”
Jane Eyre (1943)
As she did in Rebecca, Joan Fontaine plays an outsider who moves into a fancy house which harbors a dark secret and even more importantly, a rich stud (Orson Welles) who is haunted by that secret!
Jane Eyre (Fontaine) is one of those waifish orphan girls who suffers from a bad attitude while she’s living with her evil aunt and her prissy cousin. It isn’t long though before the aunt tells Jane that she’s going to get to go away to a special school for girls.
Jane is excited because now she’ll get to learn stuff and be at a school where everyone will love her. This place she’s going is called Lowood and just to show her aunt who has all the stroke now that she’s off to this special school, she unleashes a vitriolic speech on the aunt in the front yard just before she tells the coachman to deliver her to her awesome new school! Continue reading “Jane Eyre (1943)”