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UFOria (1984)
This movie is a hoot!
Wonderful character actors at their best. Live Harry Dean Stanton and Fred Ward. Cindy Williams is fresh and funny. Filmed in 1980 but it took years to find a distributor.
The Delinquents (1957)
Filmed in 1955
Although United Artist released The Delinquents in 1957, it was filmed in Kansas City in the summer of 1955. That helps explain the musical choice of jazz over rock. When it was shot, the ground just been broken on the juvenile delinquent sub-genre with The Wild Ones and The Blackboard Jungle. A more timely release would likely have made it more successful at the box office and more influential on other rebelling teen films. Even with the late release, the film made a tidy profit for the studio.
Altman later said Tom Laughlin copped an attitude during the filming and was very difficult to work with.
A Man to Remember (1938)
Excellent performance by Ellis
This melodrama creaks with age but the best performance by far was given by one of the oldest actors--Edward Ellis. Many actors who came to movies late in their careers are quite mannered and stagy. Some actors--Charles Middleton comes to mind--turned this stiffness into a virtue but more often, it simply dates the movie. I was very surprised at the subtlety of Ellis' performance as he managed to display a variety of emotions with underplayed touches. It reminded me of the best performances of Marie Dressler, a high compliment.
It is a shameless tearjerker about a small town doctor trying to warn his community about a potential polio epidemic which angers town leaders because it will mean canceling the local fair in which they are all invested. A tearjerker but then Marie Dressler jerked a few tears in her day.
One funny sight is poor, young Lee Bowman with the waistline of his pants resting closer to his armpits than his waist.
Richard Moore
Lord Byron of Broadway (1930)
A creaking relic with some interest
This is a movie musical from 1930 so expect very static scenes as the sound equipment in those days greatly limited the actors and director. Second, let me caution that the actor in the lead male role and the two actresses in the top female roles are often blushingly amateurish. The director didn't seem to be much help and in a few years he would be at Monogram doing routine programmers.
So what's worthwhile here? First there is the performance of Cliff Edwards, who gets a chance at a full-bodied role and does well. He shows he could be more than a Disney footnote.
But the biggest surprise to me was the fine, natural performance of Benny Rubin. I was so accustomed to him as an aging ethnic comedian that I almost didn't recognize him. The role was flash-flash "Jewish" as he played an employee of a song publisher and he joked about charging the hero interest for a loan. But he was the most natural presence on the screen and he shined as a real human being. The camera loved him at the same time it gave scant grace to the leads in this film.
Rubin is often mentioned as a talented comedian who was limited in Hollywood by the ethnic prejudice. Here we see the very real evidence of what was lost because of that prejudice.
The Peacemaker (1956)
It's not bad for a Bible-thumper
Watching this movie it quickly became apparent that it was made to present Christianity in a popular format--and nothing was more popular in 1956 than the western. Back when I was a kid (which includes all of the 1950s) churches and, now and then, schools would present such movies. I would not be surprised if this church audience was a key market for this movie as its lack of stars and slow pace would have crippled it in movie theaters.
That said, I kept watching it and was surprised at the professionalism of the actors and the production. Usually such productions have a few professionals then fill out the cast with near amateurs who would cause all but a parent to blush. In this production there were no real howlers.
Mitchell gives a good performance in the lead role, although he has a face and appearance more suitable for a bad guy. That old pro Robert Armstrong gives his usual solid performance as a sheriff of questionable loyalties. The same can be said of Taylor Holmes, who plays the town drunk who becomes the new preacher's first friend.
Is this worth searching out? No. But if, like me tonight, you can't get to sleep and you find The Peacemaker on cable, you could do worse. I started watching it to catch Robert Armstrong and then continued watching to see how deeply it might slip into Bible thumping. So what if it did thump the Bible now and then? What the hell, I've stayed up later to watch worse movies than this one.