Showing posts with label spencer tracy. Show all posts
Showing posts with label spencer tracy. Show all posts

11/08/2011

The Devil at 4 O'Clock (1961) Review

The Devil at 4 O'Clock (1961)
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This movie was one of the orginal "disaster films," originating the genre. Actually, only part of the film was shot on Maui (mostly around Lahaina and the Maui Needle). The rest was done with some amazing soundstages. The volcano (built in the middle of a pond in Fallbrook, California) provided stock footage for many films that came after, and you'll be amazed how realistic the earthquake shots look. All this with low-tech special effects!
If you are bored or unaffected by the actual movie, you're way too jaded to be watching this human drama of an alcoholic priest whose life and vocation have lost their meaning. Go watch a blockbuster disaster flick and root for the special effects. Yeah, it's a little hokily sentimental at times, but I've shown this one to friends who marvelled at what a great story of human experience it told, got a lump in their throats at the end, etc. Then they recommended it to their friends. (Admittedly, Sinatra is NOT at his best. However, Spencer Tracy and the rest of the cast carry the movie.)
(Yes, my father was the art director, which is how I know so much about the special effects and technical aspects, but it's still one of my all-time favorite films, even discounting that.)

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7/11/2011

TCM Greatest Classic Films Collection: Romantic Comedies (Adam's Rib / Woman of the Year / The Philadelphia Story / Bringing Up Baby) (2009) Review

TCM Greatest Classic Films Collection: Romantic Comedies (Adam's Rib / Woman of the Year / The Philadelphia Story / Bringing Up Baby) (2009)
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This is one of 27 sets of four movie packs that Warner Home Video plans to release in the next few years. Their purpose is to introduce classic film to people previously unaware of these films via very affordable bare bones versions of these movies. This set has four very good films, all featuring Katharine Hepburn.
Woman of the Year (1941) - The film that introduced Katharine Hepburn and Spencer Tracy and sparked a long relationship both on and offscreen. Here Hepburn plays an early feminist who goes around collecting causes. Spencer Tracy is the sportswriter that loves her. They marry, but things go downhill quickly since Kate is really already married to her causes.
Adam's Rib (1951) - Ten years have passed and Hepburn and Tracy have aged a bit, but the spark and the chemistry is still there. This time the pair are married lawyers. He is a prosecutor and she a defense attorney. Problems arise when Hepburn defends a woman who shot her husband when she caught him cheating on her and Tracy is the prosecuting attorney in the same case.
Bringing Up Baby (1938) - One of the original screwball comedies. Stars Cary Grant as an anthropologist who gets mixed up with a very dizzy young woman played by Hepburn. The plot involves a tame leopard - Baby - and a dinosaur bone buried by a dog - the exact whereabouts are unknown.
The Philadelphia Story (1940) - Reteams Katharine Hepburn and Cary Grant as a divorced pair of socialites. Hepburn's character is about to marry a man of the people who pulled himself up by his bootstraps, and also happens to be one of the most annoying people who has ever lived. James Stewart oddly won a Best Actor award for what is essentially a supporting role. It is especially odd when you think about all of the other great performances in which he was the undisputed lead and he wasn't even nominated.
The only drawback to this set is that - if you want all the extras - you might want to consider Classic Comedies Collection (Bringing Up Baby / The Philadelphia Story Two-Disc Special Edition / Dinner at Eight / Libeled Lady / Stage Door / To Be or Not to Be) in the case of Bringing Up Baby and The Philadelphia Story. Hepburn and Tracy fans might want to consider The Hepburn & Tracy Signature Collection (Woman of the Year / Pat and Mike / Adam's Rib / The Spencer Tracy Legacy). However, both of these sets are considerably more expensive than this basic four-pack, and low cost is really the point of this set in the first place.

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THE PHILADELPHIA STORY Katharine Hepburn, Cary Grant and Best Actor Academy Award winner James Stewart star in the tale of a faultfinding, bride-to-be socialite who gets her come-uppance. George Cukor directs this screen pinnacle of sophisticated romantic comedy.BRINGING UP BABY When scatterbrained heiress Katharine Hepburn meets mild-mannered museum curator Cary Grant, the results are riotous. Howard Hawks directs a giddy romp thats been hailed as the most glorious laughter-inducing movie ever!ADAMS RIB Spencer Tracy and Katharine Hepburn play a married prosecutor and defense attorney assigned to the same sensational attempted-murder trial in this clever courtroom battle of the sexes. Judy Holliday co-stars and George Cukor directs.WOMAN OF THE YEAR Spencer Tracy and Katharine Hepburn show what chemistry is all about as George Stevens directs this witty Oscar winner about the bumpy romance of a meat-and-potatoes sportswriter and a world-renowned political pundit.

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6/18/2011

TCM Greatest Classic Films Collection: Comedy (Arsenic and Old Lace / A Night at the Opera / The Long Long Trailer / Father of the Bride 1950) (2009) Review

TCM Greatest Classic Films Collection: Comedy (Arsenic and Old Lace / A Night at the Opera / The Long Long Trailer / Father of the Bride 1950) (2009)
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This collection contains four very different comedies from four very different types of comics. It is part of over a dozen sets produced by Warner Home Video to bring classic film to the masses by making inexpensive sets of the better films in their libraries that have no extra features.
The oldest in the bunch, "A Night at the Opera" (1935), revived the career of the Marx Brothers after they were released from their contract at Paramount. Irving Thalberg thought that the brothers' comedy still had merit and that part of their problem was that "they never helped anybody". The test of time has shown that, although not profitable at the time, the Paramount Marx comedies were the best film work that the brothers did. However, that doesn't mean that this film isn't great. It is also available in a more deluxe form in the collection The Marx Brothers Collection (A Night at The Opera/A Day at The Races/A Night in Casablanca/Room Service/At the Circus/Go West/The Big Store).
"Arsenic and Old Lace" (1944) stars Cary Grant in a classic dark comedy. Grant plays a newlywed who finds out that his aunts have made a habit of poisoning their elderly male boarders and burying them in the cellar. This has only been available in the past as a single DVD, and it is an older one at that - released in 2000 I believe.
"Father of the Bride" (1950) has Spencer Tracy as a man who begins to feel his age and his pocketbook when his daughter (Elizabeth Taylor) gets married. It shows Tracy has a knack for comedy even if Katharine Hepburn is not involved. This is available in a more deluxe edition in the now out of print The Elizabeth Taylor Signature Collection (National Velvet / Father of the Bride / Cat on a Hot Tin Roof / Butterfield 8).
Finally there is "The Long Long Trailer" from 1954. Made to capitalize on the popularity of the TV series "I Love Lucy", the film is pretty funny in its own right even it is basically Lucy and Desi playing their TV characters under other names. The two play newlyweds who buy a motor home instead of a house and almost ruin their marriage by going on a cross-America trek in the thing. This is also available in The Lucy & Desi Collection (Too Many Girls / The Long Long Trailer / Forever, Darling). By and large I don't think that the movies ever figured out what to do with Lucille Ball, but this is one of her better efforts in film.

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