So, I've watched a whole bunch of movies lately, but none have stood out enough to warrant their own review, but I still wanted to keep track of the more interesting ones.
"Brannigan" -- seen this one before, of course, cuz it's John Wayne. I remember liking it, and sure enough, it was still a lot of fun popcorn action. John Wayne can kick ass at any age and watching him and Richard Attenborough together is fabulously enjoyable. I also wanted to see Ralph Meeker, even in a tiny little cameo, playing John Wayne's boss, just because the thought of him ordering John Wayne around cracks me up. (And yes, I did rent it to get that whole two-minutes of RM screen time... hey, when I fall, I fall hard.)
"The Street with No Name" - Man oh man, Richard Widmark... never cross a character of his when he's on the wrong side of the law. He is so bloody intimidating. This was an okay movie, had that sort of documentary narrated style going on that doesn't really do much for me. It was good when it was in the nitty gritty of it. It was good whenever Richard Widmark was around. And it was even better when John McIntire was around. McIntire's one of those guys who shows up everywhere in older films. I mostly know him as a bad guy from westerns, but he was a good guy here, one that I was really really really rooting for. No, I wasn't particularly worried about the hero, but I sure was on the edge of my seat when McIntire was nosing around Widmark's lair.
"The Stranger Wore a Gun" - Randolph Scott western. Boring and the plot felt cobbled together, despite the great people in the cast, like Claire Trevor, Lee Marvin, and Ernest Borngine. Lee Marvin was the reason I had netflixed it, and he never does disappoint. He is just way too cool. This was also one of the many movies filmed in Lone Pine, and I've been systematically checking those out. They actually not only went up the Whitney Portal road, but into Whitney Portal itself for one of the shoot outs. It was quite cool to see what the pond looked like fifty years ago. Not much different, really! LOL!
"The Night Heaven Fell" -- Mmmmmm, Stephen Boyd. They dubbed over his lovely voice, so I had to listen to someone else speaking French, even though he was clearly saying his lines. Maybe they didn't like his Irish accent? So, quite disappointing from an audio standpoint, but ye gods the man is smolderingly sexy and brooding in this movie and... yeah. I've always found him attractive, but I've never seen him playing up the sexy angle in a role quite like this. He does it extremely well, and I have to admit, it caught me off guard. Didn't realize just how much he could turn on the sex appeal when he wanted to. He was downright mesmerizing. It was worth it just to watch him reduce every female in the film (and the audience, ahem) to melted goo. A young Brigitte Bardot's in it for the guys to drool over. She sure does show a LOT more skin than Boyd does. Hmph, but I think it says a lot that he doesn't have to. All he has to do is look at you.
"Duck, You Sucker" -- HAH! This movie amused me greatly. Sergio Leone spaghetti western, starring Rod Steiger and James Coburn, who make a surprisingly good pairing. "Duck, you sucker" is Coburn's signature line, and he uses it to great comedic effect when he first meets Steiger and they engage in a little tit for tat destruction of each other's property. Had to watch that part three times, it was so danged funny. I've always loved Coburn, but it surprised me just how much I loved Steiger here. Movie's a rather odd mix of humor and nasty deadly seriousness, but I thought it worked. Of course, it also explores friendship and betrayal, two of my favorite things, so that helped. And the bridge explosion.... holy moly. Now THAT is an explosion. That might just be the most jaw-droppingly spectucular explosion I have EVER seen on film. Wow.
"The Blue Bird" -- watched this Shirley Temple movie for sentimental reasons. I remember this movie from my youth because the cat and dog turned into people, because of the place of unborn children that freaked me out when I was little, with the ship that sailed in the sky carrying them down to earth, and the giant forest fire. Yep, those were all there, and still somewhat freaky and bizarre. But Gale Sondergaard was the cat and she rocked, even if they did make her a stereotypical, conniving feline out for her own good.
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