The Man Who Came to Dinner (1942)

I suppose this could be seen as a Christmas movie, since Christmas does occur during the film and it's all snowy and whatnot. But it has Bette Davis, so it doesn't really matter.

Anyway, the film stars Monty Wooley as Sheridan Whiteside a famous critic well-known for his wit and acid-tongued comments. When Sheridan is visiting The Stanleys, a well-to-do Ohio family, he trips on the stairs and hurts himself, and the doctor orders him to rest. Under threat of lawsuit, the Stanleys take him in and he takes over the household. Bette Davis co-stars are Maggie Cutler, Sheridan's secretary who begins a romance with a local writer.

The film is good for three reasons. Monty Wooley, who reprises his role from the Broadway pla and delights in delivering the horrible snide and wicked insults that his character spews. The script, which provides him with the necessarily amount of venom with which to spew, and for Bette Davis who delivers a rare comedic performance. Granted, as I said in The Bride Came C.O.D. Bette Davis has the great quality of being able to play comedy straight, which works here as she allows Monty Wooley to cram in as many barbs as he can while she remains unflappable and devoted.

The film has a strong cast with excellent supporting performances, particularly Ann Sheridan as an actress friend of Sheridan's and Billie Burke playing a role almost identical to her role in Dinner at Eight, playing an overworked and anxious housewife.

This is a fun movie that revels in wit and nastyness (which may be off putting for some), but for others it can serve as a dash of spice to any sort of Christmas movie marathon, cutting through the treacle that is usually found during the holiday.

Up next, I'll most likely talk about Christmas in Connecticut. Alright, kids? Behave yourselves now.

Sleuth (1972)

Laurence Olivier and Michael Caine play romantic rivals who engage in a dangerous game of wits in this Stage-to-Screen classic.

Laurence Olivier is Andrew Wyke, a wealthy mystery novelist who enjoys games and puzzles, so much so that his house is almost like an amusement park ride. Michael Caine is Milo Tindle, the hairdresser who is having an affair with Andrew's wife. Andrew invites Milo to his mansion one day, hoping to help in providing his wife with a comfortable life once she leaves him for Milo. What results is a dangerous game of cat-and-mouse where each man tries to out do the other.

One of the main successes in the film is the brilliant performances by the two leads. Laurence Olivier is wonderfully witty in the role of the snobby writer who believes that his intelligence and wit are much superior to the lower class Milo. And Michael Caine is equally good as a man who's struggled his whole life and is using his school of hard knocks education to one-up the wealthy Andrew.

The script crackles with wit, offering up zinger after zinger as the rivals attempt to cut eachother down, adding a touch of class-ism with Andrew's view of Milo. Considering that the film largely takes place within Andrew's estate, it's a challenge to keep the viewer interest, but director Joseph L. Mankiewicz keeps the set cluttered with Andrew's possessions so that there is always something to look at, even though the acting ensures that you shouldn't be bored.

It's a great film to see, with two wonderful performances with an equally great script.

And I'm sorry for neglecting you readers, I'll try to be better.

Addams Family Values (1993)

Finals are almost over and a childhood favorite is revisited (Thanks Wal-Mart for finally getting it).

Ok, before you scoff, Addams Family Values is actually a good movie. It's not a Spice World-like guilty pleasure, it's sincerely a good film.

The film doesn't have much of a plot, though. Morticia (Angelica Huston) and Gomez (Raul Julia) have recently added Baby Pubert to the Addams clan. Of course, Wednesday (Christina Ricci) and Pugsley (Kid I've never heard of and never have since) attempt to kill the little thing until their parents higher Nanny Debby (Joan Cusack) who is really a black widow killer out to get Uncle Fester (Christopher Lloyd)'s vast fortune.

The film has to tread the line between camp and being serious enough to where the film doesn't come across as self-aware smugness, and for the most part it works, in part because of the casting. Let's get this out of the way, Christina Ricci is awesome beyond belief in this movie. It would have been so easy for a child actor to attempt to turn Wednesday's deadpan delivery into something overly sassy, but Ricci nails it by actually acting (just watch her performances in the play within the film to see how different she makes the two Wednesdays). Also, Joan Cusack is a wonderful addition to the film as the crazed murderess, making line after line hilarious and quotable. Her monologue at the end of the film about killing her previous husbands in brilliant (Just watch the many copycats on Youtube to gain an appreciation for the great Miss Cusack). The rest of the cast is great as well, but Ricci and Cusack OWN the film.

The script is great as well, offering great line after great macabre line. Sometimes it can be a bit too much, but overall the script is smarter than you would expect.

I know I've seen the first film, but I don't remember much of it and I've heard a lot of people say that this film is far superior, so I would definitely recommend this. I know it's not like the usual fare for this blog, but it's just such a fun film.

Cabaret (1972)

Here it is, the musical classic Cabaret. It's actually pretty depressing, and a bit light on the whole "musical" aspect.

Anyway, the film stars Liza Minnelli as Sally Bowles, the daughter of a U.S. ambassador who sings at the Kit Kat Club in Berlin. The Kit Kat Club is a place of "divine decadence", where ladies and "ladies" wrestle in the mud or sing songs about threesomes. All of these wild acts are overseen by the creepy Master of Ceremonies (Joel Grey), a little man with painted on cheeks who looks like a marionette. Anyway, Sally meets British writer Brian Roberts (Michael York), who may or may not be gay, and establishes a relationship with them, talking about her relationship with her father as well as her aspirations to becoming a big star. While all of this is going on, the Nazis are gaining power and the political environment is becoming darker and more hostile. It's also interesting to point out that Bob Fosse doesn't make every musical number turn into some sort of cotton candy colored gay fantasia that seems to exist on a limitless stage, instead the costumes are pretty cheap and we see the entire size of the stage, which serves to remind us that the numbers take place in a sleazy little club, that this isn't a happy, magical place.

Being a musical, this film is pretty light on actual musical numbers, there are only a handful of songs, and they're all performed in the context of the Kit Kat Club. Which is one of the main themes of the movie, using the acts of the Kit Kat Club to juxtapose the violence occurring outside its walls. While a Jewish girl is being harrassed, we see the M.C. in drag goosestepping around the stage, mocking the Nazis, or he's singing a ballad about his love for a gorilla, asking the audience to accept their love because no one can choose the direction of their own heart. This theme adds a lot of very sudden, very random shots inserting themselves in the film. You may see a man being beaten to death with a quick flash to girls dancing in the Kit Kat Club, or to the M.C.'s grinning face. For some, I can imagine that it can be very off-putting.

Now, for the performances. Liza Minnelli totally knocks it out of the park as Sally, offering the performance of a lifetime. Sally is a insecure young woman who wraps herself in grand gestures and this overblown mythology about her sex appeal, her ability to shock people, and her own quirkiness. You can see just how deliberate this act is when Sally drops the facade, gone is the campiness, instead leaving a vulnerable woman with dreams that she knows will probably never come true.

Joel Grey (who won the Oscar as well as Minnelli) is brilliant as the M.C. He displays such twisted, impish delight at the ongoings at the club, and the fact that we never see him outside the Kit Kat Club (let alone outside a stage performances) just adds to the mystery and oddness of his character.

This film holds the records for most Oscars ever won without an actual Best Picture win (it won eight), and it's turly deserved. Bob Fosse has crafted a masterpiece that is both entertaining, but sad and shocking as we learn that the Kit Kat Club may be the only place in Berlin were people can be truly free, and even that may be coming to an end.

Gaslight (1944)

Ingrid Bergman shines in this well-made, albeit predictable thriller.

Ingrid Bergman is Paula Alquist, the niece of the famous singer and actress Alice Alquist. When Alice is strangled one night, Paula goes to live with her aunt's closest friend to study singing, there she falls for Gregory Anton (Charles Boyer), a pianist, and the wed. But it becomes apparent that her marriage is not what it seems as Gregory attemts to drive his wife insane.

Now, I know that may seem a bit like a spoiler, but to be honest, the film essentially tells you the eventual twist that Gregory is evil right off the bat, so I didn't really find myself thinking "Maybe Paula really is crazy, maybe it's all in her head".

But aside from that small flaw, the film is really good. Ingrid Bergman won an Oscar for her performance, and it was well deserved. Paula is a genuinely sweet person, and its painful to watch her slowly lose her grip on reality as Gregory repeatedly tells her false stories about how she keeps losing things, or how she takes things and then hides them. Watching her doubt her sanity is heartbreaking since Bergman makes Paula's desperation palpable, and once the seed has been blossomed in her mind about her madness, she becomes a shell of her former self, her eyes glazed over and her movements slow and weary.

Charles Boyer also offers some fine work here (and was nominated for an Oscar for it). Whereas Paula begins doubting her self, Gregory becomes more and more assured, his wife's madness becoming a topic he returns to over and over. Also, we see small glimpses of his anger beneath his facade of a caring husband, moments where we see the true Gregory, a violent and rough man, far from the dignified gentleman he pretends to be. He plays the role with such conviction that had the film not spoiled itself, he really would have cast a doubt on Paula's sanity.

We also get Angela Lansbury's first film performance ever as Nancy, the rude housemaid. It's an interesting (and Oscar-nominated) performance, because Nancy seems so heartily disinterested in what's going on. She would much rather go out and flirt with the policeman on his beat, than listen to Paula talk about her sanity.

Overall, the film is really good. It's moderately suspenseful, and Ingrid Bergman really does deliver an absolutely fantastic performance full of desperation that begs to be seen.

The Great Lie (1941)

Here we have one of Bette Davis' lesser known films, which happens to be one of her better films.

Anyway, Bette Davis is Maggie, a young woman living on the plantation full of obedient Negroes. Her former flame Peter (George Brent), has just married concert pianist Sandra (Mary Astor) only to find out that their marriage is legally void. Of course, the only reason these kinds of things happen in old movies is to have poor Sandra knocked up with Peter's baby, and unfortunately for her Peter has returned to Maggie and married her. And unfortunately for both women, Peter's plane disappears over Brazil and he is presumed to be dead (but we know better, right?). So Maggie and Sandra, who have been rivals, come to a truce and Maggie hopes to care for Sandra during her shameful, sinful pregnancy. This leads to a great scene where both women are in a cabin out in Arizona and Sandra basically goes insane.

Anyway, the baby is born, Peter returns from the dead and Maggie claims the baby is hers, an arrangement with which Sandra has no objections. Or does she? Tune in to find out!

The film is an above average soap, and what really makes it memorable is the performances by the two leading ladies (who actually re-wrote the script together). Bette Davis is in the most least Bette Davis-y role you can expect, as the southern good girl aiding the woman pregnant with her husband's child. But she pulls it off with genuine kindness and sympathy.

Mary Astor, however, steals the show as the vain, arrogant, and catty pianist who find herself stuck in a situation that she loathes. She has lost her man, but doomed to carry his child, and Astor gives an Oscar-winning performances full of bitterness and bile.

Luckily, the film never really switches the focus from either of the two women, so it's able to maintain your attention throughout.

It's a nice little film that doesn't really get a whole lot of attention (well, besides an Oscar), and it's also a good show of Bette Davis' range, that she could convincingly play the good girl of the movie. So, I suggest you watch it, especially if you're a Bette Davis or Mary Astor fan.

The Apartment (1960)

Jack Lemmon and Shirley MacLaine deliver some incredibly performances in this Best Picture winner.

Jack Lemmon is C.C. Baxter (though, most people call him Buddy Boy), a everyday Joe who works for an insurance company. But C.C. has discovered a way to get on the good side of his superiors, by allowing them to use his apartment for their torrid affairs. But when his boss Mr. Sheldrake's affair with elevator girl Fran Kubelik (Shirley MacLaine), who C.C. has had a crush on for a while, ends badly and leaves the poor girl shattered, C.C. tries to help her and falls in love along the way.

The film was written and directed by Billy Wilder, easily one of the greatest people to ever get into film (He's responsible for Sunset Boulevard, Double Indemnity, and Some Like it Hot, for starters), and it shows. The film has a sharpness and a humanity about it that you typically find in a lot of Wilder's work. It also expertly balance the light and the dark, the film can take some heavy turns, but there's always a moment of humor or sincerity to break up the gloom.

The acting here is phenomenal. Jack Lemmon is wonderful as a frazzled everyman who places his own career advancement above his personal life and comfort. He has a lot of frantic mannerisms, but the performance has a lot of nuance to it, watching his heart break when he finds out about the affair between Fran and his boss, and observing him slowly fall in love with the poor elevator girl. He's just a decent guy, and Lemmon avoids adding any real darkness to the role, just a sense of puppydog sadness and weariness.

MacLaine is also wonderful. Fran is a romantic young woman who puts up a facade of humor and quirkiness to hide a lot of pain and remorse over her past romances that haven't ended all too well (she keeps a broken pocket mirror stating it "Makes me look the way I feel"). The role could have easily gone into far too much woe-is-me nonsense, but MacLaine keeps a humorous edge to a lot of what Fran says, even when she's allowing herself to be hurt and vulnerable.

Fred MacMurray is good here as well, playing a total slimeball, who uses the same ploys to land woman after woman, convincing each one that he's in love with them and on the verge of leaving his wife. It's amazing to see the sudden warmth and caring develop when he's turning on the charm, knowing that he's essentially a jerk trying to get what he wants.

The film is a very human story, showcasing two wounded, damaged people who slowly begins to heal themselves by their growing friendship and romance. We see C.C. change from a doormat to a more assertive man, who doesn't allow those to simply boss him around, and we see Fran begin to shift from being satisfied with being "the other woman" to realizing that she deserves someone better.

It's a wonderful film, regarded as one of the best ever, and I can't really disagree with that.