brucedgo Reviews

Four Star Playhouse: Night at Lark Cottage (1955) Season 3, Episode 26

What a great surprise

[8/10 · 14 December 2021]

Somehow I happened to run across "Four Star Playhouse." Perhaps because I had watched a movie with Charles Boyer in it. In any case, I remember the series -- vaguely -- from when it was on TV. And I remember liking it, though I remember absolutely none of the episodes, however many or few I may have seen.

After googling, I found out episodes were on YouTube, so I sat down at my TV and connected to YouTube via streaming. I happened upon this episode and decided to watch it. And I'm so glad I did. What a great little story. Boyer was charming, though devious. All the acting was top notch. The clever use of logic and the analogies with a card game was far more intelligent than what I expect to see on TV.

So, without giving away any spoilers, I simply recommend this episode highly. It's only twenty-five minutes long and has more meat than most hour long shows do today.

Go, Johnny, Go! (1959)

I didn't know they ever made them this bad

[2/10 · 4 April 2007]

I pretty much avoid movies I don't think I'll like. And if I do start one I usually quit early. In this case, because of the performers I fast forwarded to see the performances. They were nearly all bad, too.

The only redeeming features in the movie are 2 minutes of Jackie Wilson and several minutes of Chuck Berry. But even the Chuck Berry portion with a so called "band" was such a joke, a bunch of white guys pretending to play.

And like many films of 50's music, the singing was lip sync'd to a previous recording.

It's a shame. I went to high school from '57 to '61 and there was great music. Would love to see/hear some in a movie.

Nightfall (1988)

The worst I have ever seen

[1/10 · 27 January 2007]

I've been a science fiction fan since the '50's. I'm talking about books much more than movies. Science fiction movies have rarely come even close to the level of quality sci-fi that written stories have. I especially like short stories. And Nightfall by Asimov is one of the great ones. In the Science Fiction Hall of Fame collection it is number one. And though it's probably only among the top 50 of my personal favorites, that's still good as I have read thousands of stories over the past 50 years.

So I eagerly rented this film (it only lasted a week in the theater where I lived so I missed the chance to see it there). Which turned out to be a good thing. This movie is really, really bad. It was not only horribly acted, it had absolutely nothing to do with the story. I struggled through the first half or so, forcing myself to watch, before I finally gave up. I then fast-forwarded through the rest of the movie just so I would be able to say that I had watched the "worst movie ever made."