Great MoviesHere are some old time favorite movies to enjoy on your DVD. Topper, And Then There Were None also known as Ten Little
Indians, Also Ghost Breakers with Bob Hope. All the above I've seen and enjoyed. I think I've also seen Ghost Breakers but I can't remember. Anyway, it sounds like a good one. |
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Unusual among films in the "old dark house" style for being about a ghost
who comes back to solve her own murder. Disguised as a Topper film, and
with Roland Young and Billie Burke again cast as Mr and Mrs Topper, this
is really a clever murder mystery in reverse, a sort of "why he done it".
Praise must be lavished on the script, co-written by murder-mystery novelist
Jonathan Latimer (who also wrote some of the better Peter Falk Columbo
episodes in the 1970s) and on the playing of Young, Burke and Eddie "Rochester"
Anderson, who steal the film from headliners Carole Landis and Joan Blondell
-- it is Topper's film after all. More inspired by the late Thorne Smith's
characters than based on anything he wrote, the film nonetheless will
appeal to fans of this extraordinary novelist's humorous works. A must
for anyone who like horror send-ups, Topper or Smith! |
| And Then There Were None (1945) |
At first glance, René Clair might seem an odd match for Agatha Christie's mystery thriller Ten Little Indians, but his buoyant touch is exactly what is missing from so many overly solemn remakes. Ten strangers gather for a mysterious gathering on a secluded island. It turns out to be a farewell party, for they all have been sentenced to die for crimes in their past by a self-appointed judge, jury, and executioner who may be one of them. One by one, the guests are systematically dispatched in the manner described in the lyrics of the children's rhyme "Ten Little Indians," while the survivors nervously eye one another, splintering into tenuous alliances until the next murder throws suspicion on someone new. The terrific cast of character actors has a ball with Dudley Nichols's witty script. The flamboyant sparring of Barry Fitzgerald (whose paternal Irish lilt takes a sinister dimension) and Walter Huston is almost upstaged by Roland Young's deadpan drollery. Romantic leads Louis Hayward and June Duprez come off as arch and stiff in august company that includes a sinisterly detached Judith Anderson, a dotty and distracted C. Aubrey Smith, and a hilariously flippant Mischa Auer. The story has been remade numerous times under the title of Christie's novel, Ten Little Indians, but never as well. Clair's effervescent, lively little gem is a fatal drawing-room comedy with a body count and a surreal mood of doom. --Sean Axmaker |
| Arsenic and Old Lace (1944) |
Frank Capra made this film in 1941 before he went off to make films for America's war effort, but it wasn't released until 1944. Adapted from the hit play by Joseph Kesselring, this frantic black comedy shows Capra at his best as a master of mood and timing. Actresses Josephine Hull and Jean Adair reprise their Broadway performances as two gentle old ladies who poison men with elderberry wine to put them out of their misery. Cary Grant plays one nephew, a normal guy who just gets wind of their little hobby and tries to get them to stop, while Raymond Massey plays another, a villain just escaped from jail. Capra encourages the cast, especially Grant, to give a somewhat more outsized performance than one might expect. But made during the war years as it was, this overstated comic approach to killing was probably cathartic. -- |
| Auntie Mame (1958) |
Remember darlings, "Life's a banquet, and most suckers are starving to death." That tag line sums up this exuberant and immensely amusing 1958 comedy that can be seen repeatedly, as it never grows stale. Rosalind Russell plays the flamboyant aunt who takes in poor, orphaned Patrick, played with sophisticated ease by Jan Handzlik. Mame, all glitter and martinis, raises her nephew in a world filled with acceptance and her oddball literati friends. Nothing is too bohemian. This unfolds in colorful episodic segments that allow us to watch Patrick grow as Mame oversees his unusual upbringing while she juggles a few spouses and an extended household. Russell, who created the title role for the stage, simply shines. She is bright and brassy, but never goes too far over the top. Peggy Cass is a comedic delight as her befuddled secretary, and Coral Browne brings class to the production as her best friend. This was based on the exuberant stage play, which in turn was based on Patrick Dennis's humorous, bittersweet novel. The screen version was written by the clever duo of Betty Comden and Adolph Green. Not to be confused with the pathetically lackluster musical version starring Lucille Ball (1974), simply entitled Mame. --Rochelle O'Gorman |
| Harvey (1950) |
James Stewart stars as Elwood P. Dowd, a wealthy alcoholic whose sunny disposition and drunken antics are tolerated by most of the citizens of his community. That is, until Elwood begins to claim that he has a friend named Harvey who is an invisisble six foot rabbit. Elwood's snooty socialite sister, Veta, determined to marry off her daughter Myrtle to a respectable man, begins to plot to keep Elwood's lunacy from interfering. Reviewer: Neil Carnegie (see more about me) from Kirkcaldy, Scotland, UK. ...Adapted from a Pullitzer prize winning play, James Stewart stars in this classic black and white 1950 movie as the good natured gentleman Elwood P. Dowd, friend to everybody and in particular his constant companion "Harvey", a 6' 7" rabbit that nobody else can see. Unfortunately for Elwood's sister Veta Louise (in an Oscar winning performance) life becomes more complicated when her mission to find her daughter a husband are repeatedly scuppered time and again by Elwood and his obsession with his best friend. This inevitably leads to Veta Louise deciding to have her good natured brother committed to a mental hospital leading to all sorts of mix-ups, including being his sister being committed instead, leaving Elwood to sort everything out with his kindly and unwaveringly pleasant approach to life. |
| The Ghost Breakers (1940) |
Reviewer: A viewer from Fort Collins, CO USA I bought this movie because I love "Ghostbusters," "Ghost," and any other movie with a genuine ghost theme that's not meant to terrify but to entertain and challenge our belief in the ghostly world. I had heretofore not seen a Bob Hope movie--only knew he was a great entertainer. He is such in this--his quip re Democrats is hysterical! He's youthful and vital and warm and funny in this always entertaining and sometimes just-scarey-enough movie. Paulette Goddard holds her own with Hope and is gorgeous, coming close to the 1940s pin-up girls in her slip-dress scene at the hotel, wearing a necklace with pendant that should be reintroduced by some jewelery designer! "Isn't it exciting!" she glows as she flings open the hotel window to the thunderstorm that starts Lawrence Lawrence's (his parents had no imagination) and her exciting, scarey, and funny ghostbreaking vacation to discover if the ghosts in her recently inherited haunted mansion really are the bad guys! (It took me several viewings to sort out all the bad guys!) Bonus: A young, handsome and passionate Anthony Quinn has a small and interesting part! This humorous mystery movie will have you believing in zombies and ghosts, and have you sailing on an evening cruise ship loaded with steamer trunks headed for a tropical vacation to--Cuba! Only in the movies!!! -- |
| To Catch a Thief (1955) |
This minor 1955 work by Alfred Hitchcock, one of the lighter entries of his creative peak in the 1950s, is still imbued with the master's stock themes of shared guilt and romantic ambivalence. It is also hardly lacking in Hitchcockian cinematic inventiveness, such as a famous, often-imitated sequence in which some smooching between stars Cary Grant and Grace Kelly is intercut with a fireworks show that just happens to be going on outside in a Riviera setting. Grant plays a reformed cat burglar who is suspected of reviving his trade, though he knows someone else is using his old methods. A very enjoyable experience, but don't get this confused with Hitchcock's other Cary Grant film of that decade, which was a masterpiece: North by Northwest |
| Topper Returns (1941) |
Reviewer: Henning Sebastian Jahre from Oslo, Norway Skip "The Philadelphia Story" and "Adam`s Rib". T H I S is the all-time comedy of the golden age. Right, it i s a lowbudget comedy, but it doesn`t matter. The performances and the lines has not dated 1 bit. You`ll see STAR performances from Billie Burke, Roland Young, Rochester and.... no this isn`t fair: THEY ARE ALL GOOD as a matter of fact. TRIVIA: Carole Landis committed suicide in 1948 after an ill-fated infatuation with Rex Harrison. But; TOPPER RETURNS must be considered one of the craziest and funniest movies ever made. It`s for the whole family |
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