Monday, April 30, 2012

Bitches - amirite?

Probably completely apocryphal, in an era where "pictures or it didn't happen" has lost it's meaning. A delight nonetheless from Tumblr via Completelyunproductive
Clique for bigger.

Sunday, April 22, 2012

Arletty





As the Queen of Abyssinia in The Pearls of the Crown








 
Désiré



I can never get enough Arletty. Do you know of Sacha Guitry? Criterion has released four of his films and they are available on Hulu Plus, as most of the Criterion Collection is (!) His films are a delight. Arletty is in Désiré, and The Pearls of the Crown. (Don't read too much because they are so much fun to watch, beginning with the credits.) As for Arletty...what a woman! "My heart is French, my ass is international," she supposedly said, after having an affair with a German officer during the occupation. Bad Arletty.



photos from the Criterion Site.

Bettie Page's Birthday!

Teaserama- full movie

Downloadable here.

Thursday, April 19, 2012

Johnathan Frid 1924-2012

Best known to all of us in the Slammer as Barnabas Collins form the gothic horror soap opera "Dark Shadows" made in the 1960s, actor Johnathan Frid died this week. He kept up acting on stage and occasionally TV right up until the end. He died of natural causes, though supernatural ones might have been more fitting. He was given a cameo... along with Lara Parker, David Selby and Kathryn Leigh Scott in the upcoming film with Johnny Depp. Sadly for us the new film looks like it will do more to dishonor his legacy than honor it.

Thursday, April 12, 2012

The Perception of Dors



Like what I did there? With that title? Hah? HAH!?! Either way this site is a gem - one of those old-school web layouts with GIANT FONTS and stuff that looks like links but aren't.
CENTERED, CENTERED, I tells ya!- 
I think the purpose is to sell you a naked picture of Diana Dors, via the swapsale domain, but who the hell knows - life's too short to dick around with meaningless content, no?

Net-net it is, however an obsessively wonderful overview of Diana's career, replete with clips pix and posters. Go - have an ogle at this sometimes questionably beautiful, baloney-lipped wonder.

Cheeky!


Monday, April 2, 2012

The Fallen Idol

This film by director Carol Reed (The Third Man, Our Man in Havana) has been waiting in my collection 2 years for me have the time watch it. Based on the story «The Basement Room» by Graham Greene, who also wrote the screenplay. Green also wrote the films Reed directed I mentioned already as well. A formidable film making team to be sure. Visually this film is beautiful, the images dense, sharp and the composition of each frame incredibly compelling. The story, however is a little odd... the characters are not very appealing and the plot straddles the line between drama and comedy... but the comedy isn’t all that funny and the drama is undermined by the unlikeable characters. The young child who is the main focus of the story and his interpretation of events, which are coloured heavily by the fantastic stories the hotel concierge tells him, is an insufferable pest. Why the concierge (the child’s idol of sorts, I guess) pays him any attention at all is a mystery to me. The actor is fine but the character is a spoiled, selfish ignorant pain in the ass. The lead man is underplayed wonderfully, but a little too distant, no matter what happens. Even when he finds his wife dead at the foot of the grand staircase and is accused of her murder, he seems unmoved. The wife is portrayed as total bitter botch, though now and then you see signs of the pain she feels from the neglect of her husband and her knowledge he has been having an affair with a young woman behind her back. The resolution of the whole affair seems ridiculous. The entire investigation of a woman’s death is seemingly based solely on the words of some horrible, confused boy who’s is hardly a reliable witness. Worth seeing? Still I have to say yes. It’s just too visually impressive to dismiss but it doesn’t come up to the level of «The Third Man» in terms of other elements of the production, especially story telling.