Classic Movie Review - Double Indemnity (1944)

So I got to see one of my favorite movies of all time on 35mm last night. As I posted on Facebook, there's something special about watching old black-and-white movies on 35mm film in a theater. Call me a film geek, but I love the scratches, the sound fading in and out, the communal experience of seeing a film with an audience. In my original review below, I state that Double Indemnity may be in my Top Ten favorite movies of all time, but I'm fairly certain now that the film is entrenched in my Top Five movies. I love it. It's not perfect, but I love it nonetheless.

Below is a repost of my original review of the film.

***Originally posted on January 31, 2009***

starring Fred MacMurray, Barbara Stanwyck, and Edward G. Robinson
directed by Billy Wilder
screenplay by Billy Wilder and Raymond Chandler

Neff: You want to know who killed Deitrichson? Hold tight to that cheap cigar of yours, Keyes. I killed Dietrichson. Me, Walter Neff, 35 years old, unmarried, no physical scars...until a while ago, that is. Yes, I killed him. I killed him for money and for a woman. And I didn't get the money and I didn't get the woman. Pretty, isn't it? It all began last May...

Seriously, they don't make movies like this anymore. With all the crap that they release today, it's nice to see that the film industry at least was able to produce excellent movies at one point in time and thank goodness we can go back and watch them.

A classic film noir, Double Indemnity has all that you would expect in the genre -- people doing bad things to get what they want, putting the audience on the side of the killer, a femme fatale, smoky rooms, and shadowy shots.

Walter Neff (MacMurray), an insurance sales man, confesses at the very beginning of the film to the murder of a man -- a man whose wife Walter has fallen in love with. Phyllis Dietrichson (Stanwyck) is unhappy in her marriage and she makes that perfectly clear when Neff visits the Dietrichson home on a sunny summer afternoon to renew her husband's auto insurance. The hubby isn't home, but Phyllis and Neff hit it off right away -- bouncing some incredibly witty, sexy lines off of each other (I am a big Billy Wilder fan and he does not disappoint here).

Unhappy in her marriage, Phyllis desires to take out accident insurance on her husband without his knowledge -- a sure giveaway that she intends to somehow kill him and take the insurance money. Neff doesn't want to be involved at first, but his newfound infatuation takes him over and he agrees to help Phyllis plan and carry out her husband's murder so long as they'll be together in the end.

Believe me, that's not ruining a thing for you as that is all laid out in the first thirty minutes of the film. And it's not ruining a thing to tell you that their plan doesn't succeed as they had planned...heck, you discover that within the first three minutes. It's what happens leading up to the murder and the clean-up afterwards that's a doozy. It's not that it's got a shocker ending like movies today, but there are plenty of unexpected twists that it never gets the least bit boring.



The acting is all top-notch. MacMurray (best known to me as the Absent Minded Professor of Disney movies) is the everyman who turns to the dark side -- completely believable as both a good guy and a bad one. Stanwyck is great -- sexy (in that 1940s Hollywood kind of way) and completely slimy at the same time. You know she's no good from the get-go, but you're lured in by her sultry mystique. Edward G. Robinson, playing an insurance claims investigator (and Neff's co-worker who is researching the Dietrichson case) is a hoot. His wise-ass retorts were spot-on.

And it's Wilder who's to thank for the words that come out of these characters' mouths. The repartee between Neff and Phyllis is amazing -- some of the best lines I've heard in a long time. As I already said, he saves a lot of great stuff for Robinson's character as well.

There's not a wasted scene in this movie. I can't recommend this one more highly. If you haven't seen it, put it in your Netflix queue right away.

The RyMickey Rating: A

I'm going to try and make this classic movie review (movies pre-1980) thing happen once a week. I'm not sure they'll always be good movies (as I may take the time to watch movies I haven't seen before), but I'm hoping that the "classic" moniker will make most of them decent!

Classic Movie Review - Cool Hand Luke (1967)

Starring Paul Newman and George Kennedy
Written by Donn Pearce and Frank Pierson
Directed by Stuart Rosenberg

The story here is simple...man gets arrested for a seemingly petty crime, gets sentenced to two years in prison on a chain gang, attempts to escape multiple times, but is constantly getting caught. On its own, the story's okay...however, the flick is just thirty minutes too long and contains one too many escape attempts.

That being said, Paul Newman is pretty awesome. I really liked him in this. There's a charm and charisma that he exudes works extremely well for this character in this setting.

I've got too many other reviews to write to go into much more detail about this. Suffice it to say, Newman was great, but the flick itself was just okay.

The RyMickey Rating: C

Classic Movie Review - His Girl Friday (1940)

Starring Cary Grant, Rosalind Russell, and Ralph Bellamy

Written by Charles Lederer

Directed by Howard Hawks

First off, let me say that the poster design on the right doesn't match the movie at all. The poster doesn't scream "comedy" to me...although, if I'm being completely honest, the movie itself didn't really scream "comedy" to me either.

Once again, similar to my recent viewing of City Lights, I saw this one in a theater on actual film. There's something to be said for watching old movies on actual film...it feels right, or something like that. I can't really describe it, but the flickering of the light and the moderate scratches on the print are what seeing movies in a theater is all about. That being said, I just wish that I actually liked this one.

Rosalind Russell is Hildy Johnson, a newspaper reporter who is tired of living the fast-paced life that her job requires of her. She decides that she's getting married to Bruce Baldwin whose slower-paced insurance sales business will allow her to settle down and have a nice calm living. As she enters her workplace to announce her departure, she runs into her ex-husband, Walter Burns, who (I believe) is the editor of the newspaper for which she worked. They bicker, as all divorced couples (who still love each other) do, and from the get-go, you know they're going to end up together in the end. The unfortunate thing is that I didn't really find their rat-a-tat quick dialogue to be anything exciting or funny. So things didn't start out on a great note.

There's a big story going on in the city at the moment involving the hanging of a possibly mentally incompetent criminal. Walter convinces Hildy to write "one last story" with the hope of showing the public that this accused man (who shot and killed a police officer) should not be hung due to his mental incapacities. Oddly enough, this is where the film gets good, but then also falls completely off track to me. It tries to balance this incredibly serious story with witty repartee and it never quite reaches an equilibrium for me.

Admittedly, Rosalind Russell is quite good. She is the grounding force in the middle of the movie when Cary Grant's character seemingly disappears...it felt like Grant's Walter was gone for the middle 40 minutes of this movie, only being "talked to" on the phone by Russell. It was almost as if Grant had another movie to film and could only be used on certain days by the director. And while Russell certainly held her own without him, she had to do so in that awkward "is-this-funny-or-is-this-serious" part of the film.

Yes, the film picks up the pace a little at the end, and Grant, who I disliked in many parts of the movie (he just fell too suave for what I'd picture a newspaper editor to be), actually steals the show a bit in the final scenes. But, unfortunately, this just felt like a movie that couldn't find its footing to me. The humor didn't fit with the serious undertones and vice-versa.

Oh, well. They can't all be winners. (Sorry to my reader, Anonymous...I know this is a favorite of yours!)

The RyMickey Rating: D

Classic Movie Review - City Lights (1931)

Starring Charlie Chaplin, Virginia Cherrill, and Harry Myers

Written and Directed by Charlie Chaplin

It's always a fun thing to discover a favorite movie...and I discovered a new favorite movie tonight in City Lights.

A beautiful story of a poor, homeless Tramp (Chaplin) who, while wandering around the city one day, falls in love at first sight with a Blind Flower Girl (Cherrill). Later that same night, The Tramp saves a drunk Eccentric Millionaire (Myers) from drowning himself. The Millionaire befriends The Tramp (but only when the Millionaire is drunk...when he's sober, he kicks the poor Tramp out on the street). Through a series of events, the Blind Flower Girl finds herself in need of money and The Tramp needs to find a way to help her out. Will he succeed? Will they fall in love? All we be revealed by the end.

Chaplin was something special in this. As the star, he was captivating onscreen. Completely charming, absolutely engaging, and incredibly humorous, it was a treat to watch his facial reactions and comedic physicality onscreen (physicality? Is that even a word?).

As a director, the film looked good. Sure, there was no movement of the camera (it stays in one place for each scene), but with the little bit of film history that I know, the cameras were much too big and clunky to move around much "back then." But, the film was still visually appealing and didn't feel like you were watching something as if it were on a stage (which, with the lack of camera movement, can sometimes be the case at least in what I've seen silent movie-wise).

As a writer, Chaplin has a knack for comedy, for sure. There's a boxing scene in this that, as my fellow filmgoer Anonymous said, should be shown on classic comedy clip reels. It's been a long time since I laughed so much that my eyes welled up with tears, but that happened here during that boxing scene. But, Chaplin doesn't just excel at comedy here...the love story between The Tramp and the Blind Flower Girl is amazingly touching and believable. And he's able to convey this with minimal title/dialogue cards popping up on the screen. I was actually slightly surprised by the limited usage of title cards. I've seen a decent amount of silent films and they all seemed to rely much more on the title cards than Chaplin needed to in this. This certainly jumps back to Chaplin as a director -- he was able to get nearly all of what he needed to convey out of his actors' movements and facial expressions.

I don't know what else to say. I really loved this movie. Before I went into this, I was telling myself that I liked Buster Keaton more than Charlie Chaplin in the Battle of the Silent Film Stars, but Chaplin definitely has skyrocketed to the lead with this flick.

The RyMickey Rating: A

Classic Movie Review - The Letter (1940)

The Letter
Starring Bette Davis, Herbert Marshall, and James Stephenson
Written by Howard Koch
Directed by William Wyler

"If you love a person, you can forgive anything"

This movie has been on my Netflix queue for a long time (how I found out about it, I have no clue), so when I saw it was showing on Turner Classic Movies, I jumped at the chance to finally watch it. I was not disappointed.

Bette Davis gives a powerhouse performance here. I tend to think of Davis as a great actress, but rather harsh in her delivery. Here, she's quite subdued, while still maintaining that hint of sharpness in her character. Davis is Leslie Crosbie and when we first see her, she has a gun in her hand and is shooting a man outside of her cottage in Malaya (now Mayalasia...a little Wikipedia search told me that this was a British colony at the time). Why she did it is unknown and is only gradually revealed, and the director and writer both did wonderful jobs of maintaining suspense and tension.

With her husband by her side, Leslie must face trial for her crime, but has assured everyone that she killed in self-defense. While initially believed to be telling the truth, her lawyer becomes aware of a letter Leslie wrote (hence the movie title) that shines a new light on the crime...one that may prove Leslie is not as innocent as once expected.

The movie is a thriller, but in an old school sense. Tension arises from the actors, their line readings, and their facial expressions. Helped by a beautiful Asian-tinged melodramatic (not in a bad way) 40s style musical score by Max Steiner, director William Wyler has crafted a great looking movie. His use of shadows, lingering shots, and the way he frames scenes is certainly admirable.

With a brisk 90-minute running time, this is a perfect starting movie for those interested in discovering what classic 40s melodrama is all about.

The RyMickey Rating: A-

Classic Movie Review - Easter Parade (1948)

starring Fred Astaire, Judy Garland, Peter Lawford, and Anne Murray
screenplay by Sidney Sheldon, Frances Goodrich, and Albert Hackett

directed by Charles Waters"In your Easter bonnet with all the frills upon it,

You'll be the grandest lady in the Easter parade.
Oh, I could write a sonnet about your Easter bonnet
And of the girl I'm taking to the Easter parade."

Easter Parade is a stereotypical 1940s musical if there ever was one. It's got your dance sequences that are only there to show that Fred Astaire can dance. It's got your typical scene where they showcase "elegant fashion" simply for no other reason than to showcase "elegant fashion" (Lord knows, it has nothing to do with the plot and all and brings the movie to a dead halt). It's got a final 40 minutes that are simply there to "put on a stage show" and not advance the plot in the slightest.

Sure, these things are laughable nowadays, but for the most part, Easter Parade works as a film and that certainly has a lot to do with Judy Garland and Fred Astaire. Right at the very beginning, Astaire is seen walking down the street singing "Happy Easter" to people, and I couldn't help but smile. Sure, it's corny as hell, but Astaire sells it. And Judy Garland is definitely a stunning presence onscreen. I admittedly have not seen many of her films, but she certainly delivered in this one.

The plot is super simple. Astaire is Don who has been working with Nadine (Ann Miller) for years as part of a dancing/singing duo. Nadine, however, wants to go solo and she leaves Don. A sullen and angry Don finds young dancer Hannah (Garland) at a bar/club and hires her on the spot to join him onstage. Will Don be able to mold Hannah into the dancer she needs to be in order to succeed on Broadway? Only time will tell (although, let's be honest, it's Judy Garland...she's the star...there's not much tension here...you know she's gonna "make it on Broadway").

Now, it's not a perfect movie...There are the faults that I mentioned in the first paragraph that definitely bring the film to a near stop an hour in. But the first hour is genuinely entertaining and lovely to look at. Director Waters allows his camera to linger on certain scenes which seemed to me to be unusual for 1940s musicals...there are whole verses and choruses that he allows the actors to sing without making cuts and it made for some interesting shots.

Overall, it was certainly a fitting movie to watch today (thanks, Turner Classic Movies), and it definitely made me interested to see some of Judy Garland's other work.

The RyMickey Rating: B

Classic Movie Review - The Umbrellas of Cherbourg (1964)

starring Catherine Deneuve, Nino Castelnuovo, Anne Vernon, Marc Michel, and Ellen Farner

directed and "scenario et dialogue" by Jacques Demy

Geneviéve: Absence is a funny thing.  I feel like Guy left years ago.  I look at this photo and I forget what he really looks like.  When I think of him, it's this photo that I see.

My first foreign film to review on this site and it's certainly a different one.  It's essentially an opera (without the booming, overpowering opera voices).  Every single word of dialogue is sung.  This film would never ever work if it was done in English.  I wonder how the French felt watching this...was it weird for them to see their native language sung like an opera?  It wasn't the least bit weird for me, but about halfway through, I was saying to myself that there is no way I wouldn't be laughing if this was in English and I was hearing someone sing "Bring me some tea.  There's water in the kettle."  In French, it wasn't so weird...in English, I'd have probably turned this off.

The plot is super-simple...almost too much so.  Told in three parts, in part one, "The Departure," we meet two young lovers -- Guy and Geneviéve -- living in the small town of Cherbourg.  Guy gets called off to war (let's not even get into the fact that a Frenchman is going to war which in and of itself is laughable), ending the first part with a beautiful song -- "I Will Wait For You" -- and a beautiful shot at a train station.  Part Two -- "The Absence" -- focuses on Geneviéve dealing with Guy being gone.  Something rather surprising is unveiled early on in this segment and it ends rather sadly.  Unfortunately, Part Three entitled "The Return" bring Guy back, but things are not even close to the same as when he left.  The plot is simple, as I've already said, but things don't always go the way you think they would in a French romance.  

The film is intriguingly shot.  At times, there are some odd directorial choices, but it works for some reason.  In other movies, I might think these shots would scream "PRETENSION!" but in this basic story, they work.  Apparently, the film is noted for its use of colors and there is certainly a wide palette on display, which adds to the visuals without a doubt.  

The music is also superb with enough changes in tempo to never grow boring.  It's not that you're going to be able to sing the songs (they're in French, obviously), but you may be humming the music at the end.  As I mentioned above, the song "I Will Wait for You" has a stunningly beautiful melody that is played several times throughout the film.  Additionally, I found it incredibly intriguing that it never looked like the actors were lip-synching.  For all I know, maybe they were singing live on-set, but I can't imagine that they were (as that hardly ever happens in a musical).  Nevertheless, the lip-synching was dead-on perfect all the time.

So, if you can get past the fact that there is no spoken dialogue, this one is definitely worth a look.  You'll never have seen any film like it, I can guarantee that.

The RyMickey Rating: B+

Classic Movie Review - The Philadelphia Story (1940)

starring Cary Grant, Katharine Hepburn, and Jimmy Stewart
directed by George Cukor
screenplay by Donald Ogden Stewart

Liz Imbrie: We all go a little haywire at times, and if we don't, maybe we ought to.

I had seen The Philadelphia Story before, and I didn't remember loving it. Since the word "classic" is bandied about in regards to this flick, I thought I'd give it another look. Unfortunately, my opinion didn't change a whole lot.

The film starts promisingly, striking a very comedic tone from the first scene, but it then shifts to a more subdued tone that just doesn't mesh with the beginning.

Tracy Lord (Hepburn) was once married to C.K. Dexter Haven (Grant), but they have since divorced, finding their biting, sarcastic attitudes incompatible. Cut to a few years later and Tracy is due to be married again. The Lord family is famous in the Philadelphia social scene and the editor of Spy Magazine wants to send reporter Macaulay Conner (Stewart) to cover the shindig. There's a variety of misinformation, misunderstandings, and misdeeds that create chaos leading up to the impending nuptials...ideally, that chaos would inspire comedy, but the director really didn't allow the humor to ebb and flow. There were literally 15 minutes at a time where I didn't smile or chuckle. And that's where the problem lies with this flick. If you're trying to be a comedy (which the first 15 seconds of the film tell me that it is), you need to scatter the humor throughout. (Obviously, fault goes to the writer here, as well.)

All the acting is good, but the three leads really get overshadowed by the supporting characters, particularly Ruth Hussey as Macaulay's photographer and Virginia Weidler as Tracy's teenage sister. Weidler steals every scene she's in, and if, as a viewer, you're anxiously waiting for a minor, unimportant character to come back onscreen, there's something wrong with your flick.

It's not that The Philadelphia Story is a bad movie, but I don't think it lives up to the "classic" label that it often receives.

The RyMickey Rating: C

Classic Movie Review - Heaven Can Wait (1943)

starring Don Ameche and Gene Tierney
directed by Ernst Lubitsch
screenplay by Samson Raphaelson

Title Card at Start of Film: As Henry Van Cleve's soul passed over the Great Divide, he realized that it was extremely unlikely that his next stop would be Heaven. And so, philosophically, he presented himself where innumberable people had so often told him to go.

As stated in the title card above, Henry Van Cleve is dead and he is certain that he will be spending his eternity in Hell. When he arrives, the Devil is unfamiliar with Henry's life and he asks Henry to give him a quick overview of why he "deserves" to be admitted to the Underworld.

A light comedy, Heaven Can Wait, is a straightforward story of ladies' man Henry (Ameche) and his inability to settle down despite the fact that he is married to the lovely Martha (Tierney). There's really not much else to the film and that's why it never really grabbed me. Now, I enjoyed it, and I definitely laughed more than a few times, but in the end, it was kind of empty.

Ameche is quite good (I honestly don't know if I had seen him in anything other than Cocoon) and Tierney was lovely in that 1940s kind-of-way. She definitely had quite a presence onscreen. The supporting cast is also stellar. They are the ones that provide most of the laughs and they held their own opposite the leads.

The film looked beautiful. It had that Technicolor coloring to it (you know what I mean...I can't really describe it, but you know a Technicolor film when you see it). The sets were obviously on soundstages, but they were quite elaborate and surprisingly believable.

If only the story had a little more oomph to it. Still, overall, I would say this one should land in your Netflix queue (or your local library as I did).

The RyMickey Rating: B

Classic Movie Review - Call Northside 777 (1948)

starring Jimmy Stewart

directed by Henry Hathaway
screenplay by Jerome Cady and Jay Dratler


McNeal: I went into this thing believing nothing. I was skeptical. I figured Wiecek was using his mother to spring him. But I've changed my mind. This man is innocent, Mr. Palmer. I know that without any doubt.

Based on a true story, in Prohibition-era 1932, a cop is killed while drinking at a speakeasy and a man named Frank Wiecek is arrested, convicted of murder, and sentenced to 99 years in prison. Ten years later, Wiecek's mother, convinced of his innocence, buys a classified ad in the Chicago Times posting a $5000 reward for any information leading to a reversal of her son's conviction. Intrigued by the ad, skeptical newspaper reporter P.J. McNeal investigates the ad and discovers that everything may not have been kosher in the conviction of Wiecek.

The story is kind of trite. It's basically a cut-and-dry "investigation-type" movie. It's simply a newspaper reporter hunting down facts and figures. In that sense, it's weak plotwise. The film begins, ends, and is scattered throughout with an odd voiceover narration that makes it seem like a newsreel from the 30s or 40s. Completely unnecessary, it takes you out of the story entirely.

Additionally, this film was apparently one of the first times that a lie detector was seen onscreen and they seriously spent 10 minutes explaining what a lie detector does, how it works, and how they determine the validity of a person's responses. Similarly, at the film's climax, the 1940s audience saw an "early fax machine" (so to speak) detailing how photos were transmitted over a phone line (I think...something like that). When that's your climax, you've got a problem.

Now, it wasn't all bad by any means. Jimmy Stewart alone is enough to be worth a watch. He does nothing special here, but it's Jimmy Stewart. How can you not like this everyman? There are additionally some rather touching scenes involving the convicted Wiecek, his mother, and his wife that at least provide some emotional impact in an otherwise "by-the-book" storyline.

Another plus is the fact that many of the scenes were shot on location. While I've complained about the "newsreel" feeling of the film, the location shots at least provided a sense of realism. It reminded me of a low-budget indie film of today -- shot on a low budget, the real locations and the character actors (Jimmy Stewart is really the only person I had ever heard of before) definitely were a plus.

Unfortunately, Call Northside 777 wasn't a hit in my book. It was an okay flick that I'd really only recommend if you're a Jimmy Stewart fan. If you are, definitely give it a look...but this one doesn't quite stand the test of time.

The RyMickey Rating: C