Movie review - "El Dorado" (1966) ****1/2 (rewatching)

 I like spending time with these people. Loses half a star for the Chinaman sequence. Wayne is excellent, Mitchum fun, James Caan great, Michelle Carey energetic, Charlene Holt winning, Chritospher George impressive, Ed Asner is fine. Memorable action. Wonderful mood. Makes me feel good. 

Movie review - "Mr Soft Touch" (1949) **

 The idea for this isn't bad - gambler on the run from cops seeks reguge at refuge run by a social worker. But it's not developed well. Glenn Ford is okay as the gambler but they don't give him a decent character to play - he needed to be an extravagant flash harry type, full of charm. Evelyn Keyes is all wrong as the social worker - this should be a sweet demure type to get comedy conflict but Keyes gives off the impression of having been around the block. Terry Moore, say, would've been better.

I didn't like this film. It wasn't funny or that charming, it felt confused, and with miscast leads. Dick Powell was once going to make it with June Allyson - that would've made a lot more sense. 

 

Movie review - "The Presidio" (1988) ***

 Quite fun. Great star power from Sean Connery and Meg Ryan (doing wonders as The Girl - though she has an arc, being a hot mess). Mark Harmon very likeable. Some okay action sequences. Nothing that memorable but just old school 80s action with fun people. 

Movie review - "When Harry Met Sally" (1989) ****

 Some of humor has dated - attitudes, rather. Sally's orgasm is actually out of character for her - but what a scene. Beautifully directed. Meg Ryan is the heart - so good. Funny, gorgeous. Billy Crystal rises. Bruno Kirby and Carrie Fisher excellent. Made with such love. Woody Allen given the proper schmaltz treatment.

Movie review - "Stage Struck" (1958) **1/2

 I get the rationale - RKO remaking its back catalogue, get exciting new stars (Susan Strasberg, Chris Plummer) and director (Sidney Lumet), add colour. But Morning Glory didn't just launch Katherine Hepburn the film was all about how great Hepburn was - magnetic, talented, etc. So you'd better cast a Hepburn. From this period maybe Kim Stanley could have pulled it off. Or Anne Bancroft. Someone really great. Strasberg is pretty and sweet but not up to it - when she does soliloquies watched by everyone at a party you feel bad for her. To rub it in Plummer moons over her so does Fonda so does Herbert Marshall and then the critics.

Also Strasberg is meant, I think, to be this likeable stage struck kid but comes across more of a manipulative socipath like Eve in All About Eve - she sleeps with producer Fonda (more than 30 years older), gets writer Plummer to fall for her, enchants actor Marshall, manages to get cast in the lead after diva star Joan Greenwood leaves. We're supposed to find the final farewell between Strasberg and Fonda moving I think - Christ, she's 30 years older.

I think this film killed Strasberg's movie career before it began. 

Sunny side - looks good, Lumet loves the theatre, Plummer is relaxed and believable as a slightly stiff writer, Fonda is strong. 

Movie review - "Jolson Sings Again" (1949) ***

 Less story but this means Larry Parks can act a little more and have a more fleshed out romance - with Barbara Hale who is sweet. Lacks the original's energy but has plenty of colour and songs. Memorably bizarre bit where Parks as Jolson meets Parks as Parks.

Book review - "We did okay, kid" by Anthony Hopkins

 Is Hopkins a great actor? He's been great - Silence of the Lambs, Howard's End - but  a lot of dreck. Hollywood thinks he's great - Hollywood is like that. It was Hollywood who kept his career going when he walked out of the National in the 1970s.

Hopkins always seemed like he had his head in the clouds. This confirms it. Internal. Quiet. A loud alcoholic.

The book livens up in some spots - being sledged by Paul Sorvino making Nixon, discussing his process in Silence of the Lambs. I wish there had been more of that. But I think he lives in Hopkins land. This is low on anecdotes and actors insights.