The Falcon Strikes Back

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The Falcon Strikes Back
Topic Started: Sep 5 2009, 10:42 PM (280 Views)
panzer the great & terrible	Sep 5 2009, 10:42 PM Post #1
Mouth Breather Posts: 11,168 Group: Members Member #13 Joined: September 3, 2005	What happens if a very good, though somewhat insane director makes a series picture? He makes a very good though somewhat insane movie. I cannot possibly review this without a major spoiler, but I cannot not review the picture, so if you don't want your pleasure spoiled don't scroll down to the amazing revelation that ... In this movie Edgar Kennedy is not just a puppeteer, already hard to believe, but is also (scroll down some more) A Serial Killer!!!!! I TOLD you you wouldn't believe it. And there's even more to rave about: Cliff Edwards, noted jazz singer and voice of Jiminy Cricket, is the comic sidekick, there are actual laughs, beautiful photography and, of course, decent direction. This one made me realize why I don't have much use for most series pictures: it's actually worth watching.
	We Wear Short Shorts Flying Purple People Eater


Chandu	Sep 6 2009, 02:57 PM Post #2
Champeen of Justice and Seeker of Knowledge, but rascal at heart! Posts: 12,013 Group: Members Member #297 Joined: October 19, 2007	Also starring Harriet Hilliard as one of the leading ladies. This was the first film I've seen Harriet in and so it was of special interest to me because I used to listen to Ozzie and Harriet on the radio and watched their ensuing TV program too. Loved Cliff Edwards' role name. Goldie Locke, but didn't recognize Kennedy, although I knew he was in the film going in. I enjoyed the film too.
	Not plane, nor bird, nor even frog. It's just little ol' me...


Sgt Saturn	Sep 8 2009, 07:05 AM Post #3
Charter Member Posts: 6,530 Group: Members Member #11 Joined: September 3, 2005	Chandu Sep 6 2009, 02:57 PM Also starring Harriet Hilliard as one of the leading ladies. Does she sing in this picture? The started her career as a sing, but I've never heard her subg.
	The Ol' Sarge


Chandu	Sep 8 2009, 09:32 AM Post #4
Champeen of Justice and Seeker of Knowledge, but rascal at heart! Posts: 12,013 Group: Members Member #297 Joined: October 19, 2007	Sgt Saturn Sep 8 2009, 07:05 AM Chandu Sep 6 2009, 02:57 PM Also starring Harriet Hilliard as one of the leading ladies. Does she sing in this picture? The started her career as a sing, but I've never heard her subg. Nope, no singing. I'd heard her sing, but never seen her act, except in Ozzie & Harriet. Edited by Chandu, Sep 8 2009, 09:33 AM.
	Not plane, nor bird, nor even frog. It's just little ol' me...


panzer the great & terrible	Sep 8 2009, 11:58 AM Post #5
Mouth Breather Posts: 11,168 Group: Members Member #13 Joined: September 3, 2005	She sings in the Astaire-Rogers picture Follow the Fleet. It's an Irving Berlin score. Her song is no great shakes with the title "Get Thee Behind Me, Satan," but she delivers it persuasively.
	We Wear Short Shorts Flying Purple People Eater


Chandu	Sep 9 2009, 12:24 PM Post #6
Champeen of Justice and Seeker of Knowledge, but rascal at heart! Posts: 12,013 Group: Members Member #297 Joined: October 19, 2007	Thanks. I've got that. I'll move it up in my things I wanna watch pile.
	Not plane, nor bird, nor even frog. It's just little ol' me...


panzer the great & terrible	Sep 9 2009, 11:33 PM Post #7
Mouth Breather Posts: 11,168 Group: Members Member #13 Joined: September 3, 2005	Speaking of good ole Ed Dmytryk, I watched Hitler's Children last night and liked it, Bonita Granville and all. Tim Holt was just great as a Nazi -- he's so underrated. Lots of old friends in this, even Dr T himself, Hans Conreid. A solid three and 1/2 stars on the Panzermeter, which is damn good for a WWII propaganda flick. It is a bit earnest, but heil Hitler, what would you expect? Dmytryk fascinates me. He directed some of my favorite movies ever and then went all to pieces like Otto Preminger did, but even after that he occasionally did wonderful trash like The Carpetbaggers. He was the child of Ukrainian immigrants -- his mother died when he was little and his father neglected and abused him. Went to work as a messinger boy for Paramount in his teens, and gradually rose in the ranks to editor, and then to to directing awful B pictures, an apprenticeship somewhat like Anthony Mann's. He moved up to the A department in WWII, specializing in anti-Nazi propaganda, which IMO he did better than anybody else: he was extremely good at showing the devastating emotional effects of tyranny, for some reason. After the war he did two cool Dick Powell pictures, Murder My Sweet and Cornered, and the next year did Crossfire, a monster success -- then, Bap! HUAC got him -- he was one of the legendary Hollywood 10, served a year in prison, and then went to England to make three insignificant pictures. Then came the fateful moment -- he decided England wasn't for him and came back to the States to testify in the second batch of HUAC hearings. He didn't actually rat anybody out, I've been told, but he did accuse people they already knew about, which in some accounts reads as "helped to convict them," which isn't exactly true. In any case it ruined his life. Friends wouldn't speak to him, and in Hollywood that can be tough. He got off the blacklist, and seemed to be on a roll with The Sniper, The Caine Mutiny, and Broken Lance, but then lost his way. The last 20 years of his career contain some of the worst film disasters ever, like Where Love Has Gone, an absolute stinker from Hell. I can't think of anybody I feel more sorry for: it's obvious that his childhood doomed him to disaster. The funny thing is that lefties like Bogart and Brando stuck by him. I'd love to know more about that. Bogart actually gave one of his best performances in a post HUAC Dmytryk movie, The Caine Mutiny, and Brando's stint in The Young Lions deserves some credit too. Even some of Dmytryk's goofier movies, like Raintree County, are more powerful than they're reputed to be and folks, I'm a Southerner and that there is a pro-Yankee flick if there ever was one. What I'm saying folks is check this guy out. He has something to offer. Nutty, yes, but emotionally true sometimes. His anti-Japanese movie Behind the Rising Sun was a major cult picture in its revival during the early Fifties. Teenagers flocked to it. Being taken to it when I was about nine by an older cousin is my first cult flick memory. I had forgotten that until tonight when I saw a few minutes of it. Didn't TIVO it tho. Damn.
	We Wear Short Shorts Flying Purple People Eater


Black Tiger	Oct 6 2009, 06:27 AM Post #8
Charter Member Posts: 1,898 Group: Members Member #50 Joined: September 15, 2005	Saw Hitler's Children some years ago at a Memphis convention and agree with Panzer 100% - Tim Holt was an underrated actor. Most think of his B-western work where he was a likeable cowboy star. But he turned in wonderful performances in Hitler's Children, Treasure of Sierra Madre and His Kind of Woman.



panzer the great & terrible	Oct 6 2009, 09:35 AM Post #9
Mouth Breather Posts: 11,168 Group: Members Member #13 Joined: September 3, 2005	And The Magnificent Ambersons. A good all-arounder, IMO mostly wasted in the oaters because he wasn't convincingly country like Autry, Buck Jones, Tex Ritter and so on. Edited by panzer the great & terrible, Oct 6 2009, 09:37 AM.
	We Wear Short Shorts Flying Purple People Eater


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