Category: Classic

Take Me Out to the Ball Game (1949)

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Take Me Out to the Ball Game PosterThis is a film that I would recommend to all the people complaining that our professional athletes are overcompensated. Not because I think these people are jealous whiners and that they deserve to have to sit through this forgettable musical filled with unremarkable tunes, dance numbers that don’t ever catch fire, and a story about as thin as Frank Sinatra, though that wouldn’t be totally unwarranted punishment for them. But because this movie teaches us what happens when pro ballplayers don’t make enough money and have to find second jobs from shady gamblers.

Right from the beginning, the movie demonstrates how desirous it is for our sports heroes to not be forced into off season employment when we meet up with Gene Kelly and Old Blue Eyes as they perform their vaudeville routine that revolves around a lot of singing and dancing to the title song. Continue reading “Take Me Out to the Ball Game (1949)” →

Deception (1946)

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Deception teaches us the hard way that the only thing worse than a film ending with a big cello concerto is a film that drones on with lots of talk ten minutes after the big cello concerto.

Watching Paul Henreid straddling a big violin as he makes all these “either I’m a musical genius or I’m in need of some serious fiber” faces while he plays some obnoxious dirge that composer/rival Claude Rains dreamed up in between bouts of surly self-pity at having lost the affections of Bette Davis, made me realize why you don’t see a lot of love triangle movies involving classical musicians these days. Continue reading “Deception (1946)” →

Kings Row (1942)

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Kings Row successfully navigates around the edges of the movie-style soap opera to bring us a memorable look at how that most hallowed slice of Americana, the clean, pretty, small town, was just as susceptible to madness, corruption and pointless violence as any big city. At least until the last 20 seconds of the movie when the lame and unconvincing happy ending rears its ugly head. Continue reading “Kings Row (1942)” →

From Here to Eternity (1953)

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From Here To Eternity won eight Academy Awards back in 1953, but not Best Actor. I assume that Montgomery Clift and Burt Lancaster split the votes in that category though it’s hard to argue with winner William Holden’s performance as the crabby lone wolf in Stalag 17 either.

Clift was the heart of the picture, batting his doe-like eyes to and fro, refusing to break under all the pressure heaped on him by a boxing-obsessed captain, while Lancaster was the libido of the film, testosterone practically oozing from every pore as he eyed the Captain’s wife in a way that only someone like Lancaster could get away with. Continue reading “From Here to Eternity (1953)” →

King of Kings (1961)

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As soon as King of Kings began, I felt my heart race and my left arm go numb when the narrator (Orson Welles) intoned that the year is 63 B.C. Maybe I don’t know a whole lot about this religious stuff, but I was smart enough to notice that we were starting things way before Jesus was ever immaculately conceived, let alone bugging Romans. I wondered just how much pre-game hype I was going to have to sit through. After all, I was paying to see a film about Christ and his times, not about how crappy everyone had it until he showed up. Continue reading “King of Kings (1961)” →