More from TCM--Starring Bette Davis

Lately, I've really been into old movies from the 30s (mostly) and 40s. Some are classics, some not so much. 

One of my top five films and favorite Bette Davis movie is The Letter. I've written about it here. I ended up watching it in bits and pieces as I made dinner, etc. In this last watch, I was shocked that I didn't remember one scene. Leslie (Davis) and her attorney (James Stephenson) go to retrieve the incriminating letter of the title in a store. Leslie handles an ornate knife. The knife appears in one of the final scenes of the movie. I really need to rewatch this film with no distractions to truly appreciate it. 

The most recent film I re-watched was Bordertown; here's my post about it. I don't have a lot to add, but it struck me on this viewing is how unlikable all the characters are. 

At the beginning of the film, Johnny (Paul Muni) is lauded for his hard work ethic and escaping a life of crime. But Johnny is unbelievably arrogant as well as hot-headed, and prone to violence. He takes all the wrong lessons from his failure as a lawyer and from his interactions with snobby socialite Dale (Margaret Lindsay.) Dale is cruelly oblivious to Johnny's feelings. 

Marie (Bette Davis) is a murderer who falsely accuses Johnny. Johnny's mother (Soledad Jimenez) is slightly more than a stereotype because she didn't believe in him. She prays for him to win his first case. Padre supposedly supports him, but might as well be singing, "stick to your own kind" a la Anita in West Side Story.

Only Charlie Roark (Eugene Pallette) Marie's husband and murder victim and Johnny's boss then partner, is remotely likable. And he is portrayed as a drunken clown.

I still enjoy watching this film. 

TCM March Star of the Month: George Brent

I wish I had seen that George Brent was the Star of the Month earlier. He co-starred with Bette Davis in 11 films. I knew some of her films would be included. 

Here are a few that I caught.

First I watched: The Keyhole (1933) the first of six pairings between George and Kay Francis. Kay is unintentionally a bigamist. Her first husband is a blackmailer, and her current husband is suspicious of her activities. She sails to Cuba in a plan to get the blackmailer out of  the US. Her suspicious husband sends PI George Brent in pursuit. George's specialty is seducing married women. Of course, Kay and George fall in love and all obstacles to their romance disappear by the end of the film. 

There's a subplot with Glenda Farrell and Allen Jenkins. Glenda is a gold digger pretending to be a wealthy woman. Allen is working with George, posing at his valet. With Glenda, he pretends that George is the valet. I was hoping they would also get a happy ending.

The Goose and the Gander (1935) I selected this because of Genevieve Tobin. She was memorable as Mrs. Chisholm in The Petrified Forest. She was also good in another film with George Brent, Snowed Under. Here, Genevieve is planning a weekend getaway with George even though she's married to Ralph Forbes. Kay Francis, Ralph's first wife, overhears their plans and plots revenge against Genevieve who stole Ralph from her. After meeting George, Kay no longer cares about her ex nor getting back at Genevieve. They fall in love in record time.

Add in a couple of jewel thieves, and this film has has real potential as a farce. Too bad it doesn't quite deliver.

Stranded (1935) Kay Francis works for Traveler's Aid which is more like all the social service agencies in one. George Brent comes in looking for a worker for the bridge he is building. George falls for Kay in record time (again) and immediately gets bossy and demanding. They want to get married but he insists she immediately quit her job. He tells Kay her work is useless. Kay breaks it off.

But trouble brews at the bridge construction site thanks to Barton MacLane. He's trying to stop the bridge construction because George won't pay safety money. Kay even rushes down to a workers' meeting to defend George.   

Miss Pinkerton (1932) Policeman George Brent enlists nurse Joan Blondell to assist in a murder mystery in a spooky house. Or is it a suicide? I never did understand what the sleazy looking/acting doctor was up to, but apparently, he was just a sleazy guy and not a murderer.

South of Suez (1940) I watched this for Lee Patrick, but she's only in the beginning and end of the film. At least, I think. I watched this film over a few days, lost my place one time, and later fell asleep. Maybe I need another try. 

Happy Birthday Bette Davis

When I saw the date this morning, I knew it was something I should remember. I give Jace his heartworm medicine on the 5th, but that wasn't it. Then I checked imdb.com--it was Bette Davis's birthday. Since George Brent was March's Star of the Month, I recently watched three of his films with Bette, In This Our Life, Housewife, and Special Agent. 

I've always enjoyed In This Our Life, even though it's not a great movie. I'm not even sure I would call it good. I enjoyed watching Bette with Dennis Morgan. Charles Coburn's performance is the highlight--he was great.

I haven't seen Housewife in years. Bette is the other woman in the marriage between George Brent and Ann Dvorak. Bette and George are so obvious in public--it's just ridiculous. Actually, the entire plot is ridiculous. 

Next, I watched Special Agent--one of two films Bette did with Ricardo Cortez. Bette is the bookkeeper to mobster Ricardo and testifies against him. George is the special agent posing as a reporter. Bette has a bigger role than I remembered. Not a memorable film.

What We're Watching

The Running Man 2025: I liked the 1987 Arnold Schwarzenegger movie, and read the 2025 adaptation is more faithful to the Stephen King book. I never read the book, so can't comment on that. This version is dark  I may like dark, but I don't particularly like this film. It's too long and has too many action scenes. Maybe I'm just too old for this shit.

The Pitt Season One: Jeff suggested this show; it's very good. I tend to think that I don't like medical shows, but I'm enjoying this as well as Watson. Each episode is one hour in a shift and each season is one day. I like this format--it gives you time to live with the characters and let the stories develop. That's one of my favorite things about soap operas though they often failed to do that. 

Christmas Movies 2025

We mixed things up a bit with our holiday films this year. 

First, I only caught parts of It's a Wonderful Like and The Man Who Came to Dinner. I may watch them over the weekend--it's still Christmas week. We did see all of Christmas in Connecticut.

We watched The Bishop's Wife for the first time. I wasn't impressed, though I can't explain exactly why. Something was just missing for me. 

We rewatched Die Hard and Home Alone. Both hold up well. It's been years since I've seen Home Alone--I forgot the initial set-up with Joe Pesci as a crooked cop.

Maybe I'll get around to White Christmas and Holiday Inn some day.

Our First Christmas in Essex

Another quiet Christmas at home, but it's our new home. After Christmas breakfast, fruit, and champagne, we opened gifts in the living room in front of the fireplace--not the greatest picture, but I'm too lazy to take another. 

Now, we're watching Christmas in Connecticut--a favorite screwball Christmas comedy. I'm happy to be home; glad that I don't have to go anywhere. 

TCM Movie Nght: In Our Time (1944)

I had never seen this film, but I like Ida Lupino and Paul Henreid and fighting the Nazis, so we watched. Unfortunately, it wasn't that good. 

The opening setup is similar to that of Rebecca: a young woman, traveling in Europe with her employer, has a whirlwind romance with a handsome aristocrat.  The film took too long setting up the whirlwind romance before moving on to Jennifer's and Stephan's married life which includes updating farming practices and relationships with the peasants. The script was all over the place.

In the background, the threat of the Nazis is brewing. When the Nazis invade Poland, the film deteriorates into schmaltzy wartime propaganda. 

A good idea, badly executed.

Thanksgiving Movie Night: Plane, Trains and Automobiles

I wanted to watch a Thanksgiving movie, and this is the first I've thought of--Planes, Trains and Automobile. I knew the plot outline and had heard the film was funny.

Overall, I was disappointed. Steve Martin experiences one travel nightmare after another. It's relentless and becomes boring and unpleasant to watch. Also, the happy ending for John Candy was unearned.

Sporadic Posting, Hospital Visits, and Halloween

I certainly don't intend to post sporadically. What's the point of having a blog if I only post three times this month?

Sometimes I'm too busy, sometimes too tired, sometimes too distracted. 

Two days after my last post, Jeff was hospitalized for five nights. It started with intense pain; then there were complications. I really don't want to go into the details. What's important is that Jeff's feeling much better now and has a home PT appointment tomorrow. 

I was lucky to have friends like Annette and George. They met me at the emergency room, picked up Jace, and then invited me to stay with them. I thought it would only be for one night, but I stayed for two more. It was nice not to be alone. I just vegged and watched TV. 

Apparently Halloween is a big holiday here. I didn't participate except Jace and I continued to walk the trails. Part of the trail was decorated with ghosts, witches, bats, and more. 

I caught two of my favorite horror/Halloween movies. The first: Black Sunday. I watched it without any distractions. It is genuinely eerie and atmospheric. I also watched Kiss of the Vampire. This is not as scary as Black Sunday, and the vampires were whiny brats, but it has some good parts. 

We're settling back into what passes for normal now: slowly getting furniture and learning more about our new town.

TCM Movie Matinees

On the third day of the four day heat wave, I only left our place as necessary--to walk Jace. Over breakfast, I turned on Fog over Frisco with Bette Davis. 

I like this movie. The cast is good (except Douglas Dumbrille) and the story is fast-paced. Plus, one of the stars is Skippy, the portrayer of Asta in the Thin Man series. Unfortunately, I can't find the article I read the other day: it contrasted the bedroom styles of Arlene (Bette Davis) and Val (Margaret Lindsay) and how they reflect the sisters' personalities. How did I miss that?

I guess I have a reason to watch the movie again.

Crack-Up is the only art oriented noir I've ever heard of. After surviving a train wreck, George Steele (Pat O'Brien) breaks into the art museum where he worked and destroys a sculpture. But there was no train wreck, and Steele remembers nothing after that. Just what did happen? Steele is determined to find out, supported by Herbert Marshall and Claire Trevor (wasted in a blah role as the girlfriend.)

After another miserable loss by the Mets, we caught about half of Now Voyager. Bette is fantastic as repressed "spinster aunt" who finds herself through therapy, a makeover, love, and a new purpose in life. I love the whole cigarette lighting thing that she and Paul Henreid do. The whole cast is great. For the first time in years, I cried at the end. The power of a good movie. 

A Warner Brothers Saturday Morning

Scrolling through selections on TCM yesterday, I picked Crime School (1938.) Humphrey Bogart who sets out to improve conditions at a reform school where the Dead End Kids were sentenced to two years.

Crime School was the second film with the Dead End Kids after the iconic Dead End. It's also a somewhat milder remake of 1933's  The Mayor of Hell starring James Cagney. The following year brought yet another remake called Hell's Kitchen with Ronald Reagan and Margaret Lindsay as the reformers. One subplot in Crime School--a bad guy manipulates an inmate to discredit a reformer--is used another Bogart film, San Quentin.

I don't know if other studios remade as many films or recycled as many plots as Warner Brothers did. I remember turning on TCM once and hearing dialog I recognized from the Bette Davis film Dangerous. But it was Singapore Woman that was on TV: a remake of Dangerous set in a new locale using recycled sets from another Davis film The Letter. In They Drive by Night, Ida Lupino killed her husband using the same technique Bette Davis used in Bordertown. Both characters also went insane on the witness stand in the hero's murder trials. 

The Dead End Kids made 89 films under several names:

Dead End Kids 1934-1939

Little Tough Guys (later known as Dead End Kids and Little Tough Guys 1938-1943 

East Side Kids 1940-1945

Bowery Boys 1946 - 1958  

I grew up watching the Bowery Boys--there are 48 films in that series.

When Crime School was released, the characters were still fresh and their environments gritty. As the various series continued, the plot lines became more and more comic.

The next film I watched was Marked Woman from 1937 starring Bette Davis and Humphrey Bogart. I've always loved this film a fictionalized version of Thomas Dewey's legal pursuit of Lucky Luciano. I can't say much more about the film than I said here. Well, there's one more thing. This could be a good candidate for a modern remake without the Hays Code restrictions. Come on, the women are prostitutes, not clip joint hostesses. Martin Scorsese, where are you?

What We're Watching

Jeff and I record The Daily Show, Jeopardy, and The Simpsons. I guess we're recording The Simpsons more out of habit, but it's still worth a laugh or two. As I mentioned recently, we've been watching Dark Shadows to the end. So, we were ready to move on to new shows. 

The Bear. A fine-dining chef returns home to take over his brother's sandwich shop after his brother commits suicide. The characters are complicated, and the actors are excellent. We just started the third season with the opening of the renovated restaurant.

Watson: Sherlock Holmes partner, Dr. Watson is back practicing medicine after Holmes's death. There was a surprise appearance by Professor Moriarty--who was also supposed to be dead--at the end of the pilot episode. We've only seen the pilot, but it looks like the focus will be on medical mysteries. I'm not sure I want to watch that. But I do like Morris Chestnut as Watson.

We also watched two movies over the weekend.

Star Trek: Section 31:I'm a big Star Trek fan, but this was just okay. Michelle Yeoh was terrific as Philipa Georgiou, the emperor of the Terran Empire in the Mirror Universe who has traveled to the Prime Universe. My biggest problem is that the beginning of the movie considers Georgiou the evilist evil that ever eviled. By the end, she's just another one of the team. Yes, she helps destroy the Godsend weapon, but it just seems too pat. 

Gladiator II: Another okay film. Hanno is a prisoner who trains as a gladiator, but is actually Lucius from the original movie. Even though one of the last lines in Gladiator is "Lucius is safe," his mother sends him away from Rome to save him from assassins. It's also revealed that Lucius is the son of Maximus. I didn't like either change mainly because they arbitrarily change the original film. I've written before about how I dislike the secret  son tropes. Here it's a secret parent, but it's the same idea to increase the stakes for the hero--a cheap trick. Overall, meh. 

This is why I keep watching classic films.

Christmas 2024

The attack on Jace certainly screwed up our Christmas spirit. But he is resilient and strong, and doing well.

Jim came over for Christmas Eve dinner. On Christmas Day, Jeff and I ate some delicious leftovers (beef tenderloin) and watched Christmas movies (It's A Wonderful Live, Christmas in Connecticut, The Man Who Came to Dinner, even National Lampoon's Christmas Vacation.) The last one won't remain in the Christmas rotation. 

It's been a cold few days, warming up to a few rainy days starting tomorrow. I've been happy to be a homebody.

Rewatching The Little Foxes

One of the fun things about re-watching great movies is noticing new things and appreciating things you've seen before. 

The actors who play the Hubbard Brothers--Charles Dingle and Carl Benton Reid  are wonderful--it's Reid's film debut. I've mentioned Dan Duryea before--he is memorable as Leo. Teresa Wright is luminous as Alexandra. Who can forget Herbert Marshall as he crawls upstairs to get the heart medicine he needs after his wife Regina (Bette Davis) tells him of her contempt for him and how she wishes for his death? 

Patricia Collinge has the best scene in the film as she explains to Alexandra that she doesn't really have headaches, but that she drinks; how everyone but her knew that her husband married her for her family's cotton.

Four paragraphs before I even address Bette's performance. She's brilliant as she maneuvers among her brothers, taunts her husband, realizes she's lost her daughter. 

This is a good film with great performances--a classic.

TCM Presents: Margie (1946)

Margie is a coming-of-age film about a teenaged girl living in the 1920s, navigating high school classes, the debate club, girlfriends and boyfriends, dealing with the embarrassment of having a suffragette grandmother and a mortician father, not to mention recurring bloomer problems.

I've seen this movie many times and have always enjoyed it. It's funny and charming. But, watching it yesterday, I felt uneasy about the main romance between Margie and her French teacher, Mr. Fontayne. 

Fontayne is always showing up where Margie is: her debate, the ice skating rink. On prom night, he shows up at her house to return her homework. Fontayne tells Margie's grandmother he'd rather take Margie to the prom than anyone else. He later dances with Margie and tells her the same. In the last scene of the movie, we see them as an older, married couple. 

It's implied that Fontayne is less than eight years older than Margie, but that doesn't account for the main problem in their relationship--that he is her teacher. Odd, I never thought about that before. 

Thankful Thursday Thoughts

In keeping with my attempt to be positive, and borrowing from the Frugal Girl, I'm going to list things that make me thankful.

• After horrible flooding rains on Sunday, the weather has been great--sunny and cool. I've been wearing jackets in the morning. It's refreshing.
• On my morning walk with Jace, I saw a deer today running across the field at Mathews Park. It was beautiful and made me happy.
• The doctor figured out what was wrong with me from my colonoscopy. We have an appointment to discuss treatment.  
• I've enjoyed the last two Sara Paretsky mysteries I borrowed from the library.
• It was Bette Davis Day on TCM: 24 hours of Bette's movies. 
• The Mets had a second walk off homer against the Orioles yesterday and won the series. LGM.

Book 14: Reel Art Great Posters from the Golden Age of the Silver Screen by Stephen Rebello and Richard Allen

This is the quintessential coffee table book--it's large with beautiful photographs and illustrations--and a great Mark Twain Library sale purchase from last fall. 

I've leafed through the book several times, and then read the book over several months. I finished it one early morning last week when I couldn't get back to sleep. 

It's a fun book--I'm sure I'll be leafing through it again soon. 

Tuesday Miscellanea

After a week of sub-freezing temperatures, it's warming up. The "January thaw" has stopped the "Arctic blast." It's so nice to shed the snow boots and the heavy winter coat.  At least for a while. Temperatures will be flirting with 60 at the end of the week. The thaw is timely as one-third of the winter is now over. 

I returned to the New Canaan Nature Center after missing two weeks. I was sad to learn that Jasper died. I thought he was one of the younger birds there. I'll have to get more of the story,

Then Tupelo flew at my head. That was a bit of a shock; he's never done anything like that before.

Today we watched Murder on a Honeymoon (courtesy of TCM.) It's a fun mystery and the third of the Miss Withers/Inspector Piper movies and the last one starring Edna Mae Oliver. The cast includes Leo G. Carroll and Lola Lane. It was horrible to see Willie Best credited as Sleep 'n' Eat. 

I'm almost done with my book American Brutus. My next book will be Bette's latest.    

TCM Presents: Roadblock (1961)

I was scrolling through the TCM schedule and saw Roadblock starring Charles McGraw and recorded it. 

McGraw is insurance detective Joe Peters who encounters a beautiful "chiseler" Diane Morley (Joan Dixon) at the airport when he's returning from a successful business trip. He's attracted to her but she tells him he's not in her league and she's aiming for the World Series. 

They meet again in Los Angeles and suddenly they're in love. But Joe doubts he can keep Diane on his $350 a month salary after she's been with a rich gangster. Suddenly the (previously) straight shooter Joe gives Diane's ex inside information to rob a train for a third of the take. Then suddenly chiseler Diane decides she doesn't need all that money after all. 

It's a good film, that's weakened by the characters' sudden decisions that go against everything previously established in the film. 

McGraw is perfect in the lead. I had never seen Joan Dixon before; I thought she did a good job. One of the co-stars was Louis Jean Heydt who I wrote about here.

Another Quiet Christmas

It was just the three of us today for a quiet holiday. My brother came for dinner last night. Our Christmas Eve feast was beef tenderloin, Caesar salad, fingerling potatoes, and green beans. For dessert, we had ice cream and Jim's homemade cookies. 

Today was mellow. We had our old favorite Christmas breakfast, opened our presents, exchanged holiday greetings with friends and family, and watched holiday movies (Holiday Affair, Four Christmases--not one I'd bother to watch again, The Man Who Came to Dinner, It's a Wonderful Life) and a Doctor Who special. 

It was a relatively warm day, hitting 50 degrees, but I missed the sun. Jace and I took a long walk for about two hours this afternoon. Tonight's dinner was a spicy salmon sushi bake and leftover Caesar salad.

In the past, I've enjoyed some large family celebrations, but the smaller, intimate celebrations are good too. It was nice not to have to rush around or travel anywhere. 

Merry Christmas.