Movie review - "A Co-respondent's Course" (1931) **

 Short film (40 mins) about shenanigans involving people going to Portsea and men thinking their women are cheating. Not funny or even that logical but nice shots of Portsea and photograph over all. From FW Thring.

Movie review - "The Haunted Barn" (1931) **

 Silly, dumb but endearing short feature from FW Thring in the vein of Seven Keys to Baldpate about various people in a haunted barn - eloping lovers, woman with a gun, swagmen, rich dude, mystery body. Not good but it tries. It was banned for kids for a brief moment.

Movie review - "Lonelyhearts" (1958) *1/2

 Terrible. Dore Schary at his worst. I was going to give it two stars due to the professionalism of Myrna Loy, Robert Ryan, Dolores Hart and Maureen Stapleton but it's just too annoying.

Monty Clift's performance is full of ticks and eyes. He seems wasted. If Schary had leaned into that this might have worked.

Smug views. Everything heavy. Subplots about Ryan tormenting Loy because she once had an affair - she could've been cut out of the film. Lots of talking about reading letters. Terrible journalist characters crapping on. So much reportage. Only one story dramatised - Stapleton's husband is impotent in the war, she's horny, Clift roots her, doesn't want to to do it again, he pulls a gun... the one exciting bit. But doesn't kill Clift. Clift should have died.

Hart pines. Her dad tells her to stop looking after him and go and get married to Clift. You know like a real option. Even after Clift's lied about his dad being in prison (for shooting his cheating wife - this film is consistently misogynistic). And Clift has shagged Stapleton.

Hart tries. Ryan has a nothing character. 

I hated this film. 

Book review - 'The Creative Producer" by David Lewis (1993)

 Lewis is best known as the boyfriend of James Whale. He also produced a number of films. Has some excellent credits at Warner Bros and MGM in particular. He struggled later in the 1950s - films like Raintree County and what not.

His memoirs are fascinating - a different insight from the Golden Age. Like everyone his memoirs are self serving - takes credit for things like coming up with the insanity angle for Kings Row rather than incest with Casey Robinson. But we hear different takes on films like Kings Row but also Each Dawn I Die, Four's a Crowd, Camille.

Interesting views of people like Irving Thalberg, Hal Wallis, Jack Warner, Dore Schary, Sam Wood, etc.

Movie review - "Madison Avenue" (1961) **

 A real oddity, in a way. A sort of early 1950s executive melodrama that came out years too late with stars on the silde - Dana Andrews, Eleanor Parker, Jeanne Crain. It's in CinemaScope but it in black and white.

It's very dull. Lots and lots of chat, too much given to Dana Andrews who needs people to bounce off. Not dramatised in anyway. Feels like a bunch of hasbeens trying to recapture glory. I think even in 1953 this would have been a programmer - movies like Executive Suite had lots of stars and colours.

Could this have worked at all? Maybe with sex from people that the audience wanted to see sex with. 

So dull. So random. 

HandMade Films Best to Worst

(of the ones I have seen - so not the Missionary, Song of Freedom, Taboo, Venom, The Burning) 

Classics 

Life of Brian (1979)

The Time Bandits (1981)

The Long Good Friday (1980)

Withnail and I (1987)

Solid Comedies 

A Private Function (1984) 

Water (1985) 

Nuns on the Run (1990)

Bullshot (1983) 

Solid Dramas 

The Lonely  Passion of Judith Hearne (1989)

Mona Lisa (1986) 

Five Corners (1987) 

Brave tries 

The Raggedy Rawney (1988)

How to Succeed in Advertising (1989)

Track 29 (1989)

Scrubbers (1982) 

Powwow Highway (1989) 

Comedy misfires

Privates on Parade (1982)

Drama misfires

Bellman and True (1987) 

 Fiascos

 Shanghai Surprise (1986)

Checking Out (1989) 

Cold Dog Soup (1990) 

Movie review - "Monty Python's Life of Brian" (1979) *****

 Magnificent movie. It looks incredible - that production design, those costumes. It's hilarious. There's a devastating point - the satire on people who blindly fellow religion. No wonder people got upset- it's targeted at them. But they can't say that so they say it's blashemous. The ending is incredibly moving and powerful.