misstoes Reviews

The Weaker Sex (1948)

Inspiring WW2 Slice of Home Life

[8/10 · 6 April 2024]

This is what the war years British film industry excelled at. Ursula Jeans and Cecil Parker are a widow and friend of the late husband and her assorted adult children and relatives. The action of the film starts with Mrs. Dacre (Jeans) being given a fresh hen by a random soldier-which might be stolen. Parker is seen vacuuming the floor. War has switched their roles. Their growing friendship is nice to watch. Mrs. Dacre's sister is directly involved in the war so has the luxury of a free uniform, and they frequently clash. A son and daughter are in uniform too. The small issues set the restrained tone, not unlike Mrs. Miniver and Since You Went Away. But inevitably the war and DDay inflict a series of tragic events onto the people connected to Mrs. Dacre.

Now that the last of this generation is down to a few, films such as these will become more important as a cultural record.

If you have any interest in home front history, you'll enjoy this. I found it remarkably moving. The action sequences are terrific and the sets help to remind us how we live in relative luxury compared to life during wartime.

Definitely recommend.

Miss Marple: A Murder Is Announced (1985)

John Castle's brooding Inspector

[9/10 · 12 March 2024]

I've avoided Miss Marple my whole life, focusing on Dorothy Sayers. But then I realized that I'm now as old as Jane Marple. Hickson plays Marple with wonderful restraint, and John Castle is great as the brooding thoughtful inspector. It was delightful to see Inspector Lewis (Kevin Whatley) transported into the post WW2 village.

This is an engrossing mystery and I appreciate that there is zero campiness in this adaptation, thank goodness. The Geraldine McEwan versions are ghastly. Here the production values are excellent, and the Scotland exterior was terrific. Young Samantha Bond is luminous. Very well done though oddly, it's easy to peg the show as from the 1980s because of the musical frissons.

Atlantic Crossing (2020)

some misconceptions in reviews

[7/10 · 9 March 2024]

There are many negative reviews here based on incomplete information. Firstly, some contemporaries of FDR have stated that he was entranced by Marthe of Norway, these include author Roald Dahl. FDR was a notorious womanizer his entire life and he did have long term extra marital relationships. It is possible that these people are right about his fascination with Marthe (I found this info on Wikipedia). It is said that she and Olav were a love match. Her health problems are suggested by the series and she did die very young. Princesses in the mold of the modern British royals are a very very new thing.

Second, there was television in 1940, especially on the east coast. About 10% of Americans owned a tv set and there were many makes available. My mom in St. Paul MN even had one in 1941. It was barely better than radio, but it did exist. In NYC it was much better.

Thirdly, it does snow in Washington DC. I lived there for 35 years and it's a mess when it happens and it happens pretty much every other year, often multiple times in one winter.

Fourth, Pooks Hill (the mansion) not 30 mins from the White House but more like 20 mins as it was located in Bethesda. It was demolished after the war, but even when I lived in that part of Montgomery County in the early 1980s, Bethesda was little houses surrounded by green fields in a few places. During WW2, it probably didn't look like farmland, but it wasn't quite urban yet.

Lastly, it astonished me that people in these comments hated the subtitles, but it was an international production. And as far as historical accuracy goes, has that stopped millions from watching The Crown? The costumes and set decoration is very accurate, If you've read biographies of Eleanor Roosevelt you'll know her depiction is truthful. She was both a master manipulator and very good at public relations.

I found it less irritating than Downton Abbey, which really was a costume drama version of the old Dallas tv show. It's engaging and not stupid.

Did reviewers criticize Band of Brothers to this extent because they got some events and even historical characters totally wrong? (Liebgott wasn't Jewish, he was Catholic.) Just saying that it's a dramatization.

Porterhouse Blue (1987)

One of the darkest satires ever

[9/10 · 28 May 2023]

Brilliant, just brilliant satire of Oxbridge traditions, set here in a Cambridge college famous for not caring about scholastic achievement to the point of the porter having arranged for poor but brilliant students to take the exams for prominent sons.

Along the way we're treated to a randy middle aged lady servant who keeps trying to seduce the student whom she serves, elderly dons who constantly encourage sex without really realizing it (maybe), Elizabethan-style feasts replete with stuffed swans, whole ox etc to the point of inducing strokes in the college masters, hence Porterhouse "blue." Ian Richardson plays the most recent master brought in to replace the recently deceased and he's brought to heel by his wealthy wife who conveniently provided him with a title. But as a reformer, she wants Porterhouse made coeducational + with prophylactics in machines throughout the college (hey, it's set in the 80's). Not one character is let off the satirical hook, including the presumed lower man on the totem pole, the loyal porter.

If you're of a certain age (even American like me) you'll likely recognize most of the players and laugh your head off. Best four hours I've spent in a long time.

Midsomer Murders: Master Class (2010) Season 13, Episode 5

Medically and theologically speaking....

[6/10 · 19 April 2023]

I do so hate it when the details aren't right. As a person with porphyria I can say that heme arginate wouldn't be stored in a bottle on a shelf, "ready to ingest" as it were. It's an intravenous medication. Always. It was never anything else. (Doc Martin got their facts wrong too.) Theologically, that was no Catholic church, and no religious sister would assist at communion, though I suppose Barnaby can be excused for not catching that one because she needed the DNA? Oh except even the most basic DNA test requires about a spoonful of saliva. How do I know? From my genetic testing to determine what type of porphyria I have. The implication yet again is that porphyria is a disease caused by inbreeding. In reality it's totally random.

Three strikes means "you're out" in American baseball, and as soon as I saw the pub owner wearing sunglasses indoors, I knew the entire plot. That's a symptom of untreated porphyria.

So very disappointing.

Pie in the Sky (1994–1997)

Delightful in every way!

[10/10 · 5 December 2022]

As an American and fan of Bruce Robinson, I only knew Richard Griffiths from Withnail & I.

This series is simply a delight from start to finish! Griffiths is Henry Crabbe, a police detective and gourmet who has always wanted a little restaurant, and an on-the-job "incident" gives him an excuse to retire. Except his boss, the assistant chief constable won't let him go! That's the set up.

Maggie Steed plays his dedicated wife Margaret, who tries to keep his restaurant on track financially, while her work as an accountant takes her into many local businesses which often have financial issues which can lead to...crime. It's a gourmet's delight. As a former caterer, and mom of a pastry chef, who love police procedurals fan, it's a gourmet's delight!

Can't Stand Losing You: Surviving the Police (2012)

Belushi in Bali?! Yes.

[8/10 · 1 November 2022]

If you read any of the pro reviews here, read the one from Aisle Seat dot com. My amateur take on this is that I wish I had seen it when it first came out. The Police were definitely one of the "soundtracks of my youth" bands. I saw them in 1983 in Syracuse NY and yes, they were amazing and yes, I could see they were doing it rather robotically. Summers is a full ten years older than Sting and Copeland, having played in the Animals, and at London's Flamenco Club back in the day. His perspective is a little more seasoned, let's say, but still, when stardom hit, he was no less susceptible to its dangers. He's clearly very talented in multiple ways (his photography is really great). His narration, which others call dull, is actually a counterpoint to the astonishing events he found himself caught up in. He's frank about the drugs, the women, the neglect of his wife and daughter. The conflicts with his band mates were baked into pie, so to speak. The surprise isn't that bands break up, it's that they stay together at all after touring.

There's a rather emotional finish, and I loved that the very last song was a hat tip to another "working musician" from "Casablanca" amazingly enough.

The Hard Way (1943)

A Star is Formed

[8/10 · 11 October 2022]

This backstage drama is fascinating on several levels. We get to see the real life vaudeville act of two Wisconsinites, Dennis Morgan and Jack Carson, re-united again as song and dance men. Ida Lupino (who in real life "was born in a trunk" to actor parents) here plays a pushy stage mother to a sort-of talented young Joan Leslie, who already had 60 screen credits at 17 when this was made.

Morgan and Carson meanwhile actually play against their usual types. Morgan is especially intriguing as a jaded skirt chaser who foresees trouble for his pal Carson. Lupino had played many a hardened dame but seeing Morgan as the wise guy with intelligence and wit is terrific. He's a similar physical type to Dana Andrews but plays a bit "lighter" so when he twists the knife with a clever line (he calls Lupino Lady Macbeth) it takes your breath away. For my money, this is Dennis Morgan's movie. He calls out Lupino's character for the black widow she is, and you really feel it. It makes the hair on your neck stand up.

The weak link in this is Leslie. The quip, "she ran the emotional gamut from A to B" (Dorothy Parker? Oscar Levant?) applies as she plays drunkenness like a sugar-crazed child-she was only 17 after all-and the script reminds us "she's just a kid." She tapped with Fred Astaire around this time, but here she actually turns cartwheels onstage and waves her arms in lieu of dancing. I'm unsure if this is deliberately due to choreography. It's just very difficult to see her as a hoofer on Broadway driven to drink, responsible for a suicide, jaded by her success. She's just too too "Junior Miss." I sought this out because it was shot by James Wong Howe and he is masterful, but cannot overcome the many painted backgrounds. It's marred by being studio bound.

Still very much worth watching.

Moonlighting: I See England, I See France, I See Maddie's Netherworld (1989) Season 5, Episode 7

The Trouble with Harry

[6/10 · 19 September 2022]

David and Maddie have a dead client (named Harry Stoffer) who supposedly has one half of a winning lottery ticket. He promptly dies in Maddie's office. As usual, the "case" is just a hanger for the episode's banter to dangle upon. Along the way the entire office is made so uncomfortable that they fall into giggles when the coroner arrives, then the pair are trapped in the cemetery (where Harry's grave marker is magically in place in less than 24 hours), and we get another bit of Hitchcock musical theme. Harry's partner shows up, Bruce breaks the fourth wall a few times, and Cybill is threatened by a dog who might need to go. Bruce sings "Cabaret" (badly), and there's a dream sequence which for real film buffs, loosely references the cinematography of The Red Shoes.

All in all, it's better than average tv (especially in 2022) but you definitely get the feeling that Glenn Gordon Caron was tiring of the grind.

Moonlighting: Between a Yuk and a Hard Place (1988) Season 5, Episode 2

Amazing chase and a more amazing score

[8/10 · 17 September 2022]

How do you top a chase with an airplane? Well.... Glenn Gordon Caron's Maddie and David get back in the swing again with help from Agnes and MacGillicuddy. There are more bits from Hitchcock with swipes from Bernard Hermann's Hitchcock scores to go with script flashes from Hitch as well (including a guy with an overt fondness for birds). Notice the bit of Hermann's theme from Vertigo as just as Up, Up, and Away by Jimmy Webb (as sung by the Johnny Mann Singers not Fifth Dimension) finishes. This is an episode which almost makes up for the dry as dust stretches in Moonlighting. It holds up after all these years but just barely. Worth seeing.

Moonlighting: Take a Left at the Altar (1987) Season 4, Episode 3

A chase scene like no other

[8/10 · 15 September 2022]

And the score is pretty amazing too. David and Herb Viola take a case while Maddie pouts in Chicago. The case involves a woman jilted at the altar (Amanda Plummer, daughter of actor Christopher). The episode has an unusually specific musical score with bits recalling Hitchcock and Flight of the Bumblebee. MacGillicudy's whirlwind marriage comes up again, and the chase scene is especially interesting. Not much light is shed on Maddie's relationship with her parents, except that they're awfully forgiving. Eva Marie Saint returns as Maddie's still gorgeous mom. If anyone knows which airport was used, please add it!

Strangers in the Night (1944)

Toxic Femininity

[7/10 · 31 May 2022]

This nifty little noir-gothic B picture throws everything but a "dark and stormy night" at you. WW2 combat, a train wreck, a foreign-accented scheming recluse, cliff top mansion, poisonings, booby traps and terrified female retainer. The dramatic action turns on what has happened to the mysterious pen pal daughter Rosemary? Returning Marine Johnny wants to know. The new lady doctor (Virginia Grey) is baptized by fire during a convenient train derailment just outside town, which occurs at the very moment when said Marine is about to tell the "Lady Doctor" about Rosemary. (Yes Director Anthony Mann moves the plot along quickly.) The wreck is dramatically presented then promptly forgotten about, as the marine-a combination of Van Johnson and Don DeFore- knocks on the cliff top manse door looking for Rosemary. Eventually we see a "Rebecca"-style boudoir, purportedly that of Rosemary.

This is not a criticism. The performances are very good, the sets well done, Virginia Grey is luminous as usual, Helene Thimig is very creepy in a proto-Dark Shadows role. It's an easy hour of entertainment.

The Girl Next Door (1953)

Inventive musical set in the 'burbs

[9/10 · 10 April 2022]

Perkily pleasing June Haver is teamed with old pro Dan Daily in this little-known musical. Haver plays a newly successful nightclub star who moves her first home, next door to Daily and his young son, played by Billy Gray. The musical numbers are unusually watchable, especially the amazing flying dishes choreography between Daily and Gray near the beginning. The costumes are especially luscious on the appealing Haver. (It's easy to see how she hooked Fred MacMurray!) Daily's character is a comic strip cartoonist, and several segments are animated. Furthermore, the film deals with what must've been a fairly common issue at the time-what about remarriage after the death of a parent, something that Haver and MacMurray themselves faced soon after Haver wrapped this movie-her last (her soon-to-be husband was a widower with two children).

I'm surprised I've never seen or heard of this until now. I've been a fan of Golden Age movie musicals for over fifty years. (TCM & Robert Osborne failed me!) It took this popping up on YouTube for me to discover it. I hope it finds a broader audience.

True Women (1997)

Sex Lives of Early Texans?

[5/10 · 15 February 2022]

This odd two part television movie leaves no stone unturned or bed un-rumpled when depicting the lives of pioneer women. We see them confront the evils of racism, we see them comfort each other after children die, they stare down Comanches, we see them in the sack with their men folk. This is not your grandpa's (or grandma's!) western.

Still, it's a pretty good watch. It's definitely of the Lonesome Dove-style of production design. I was hoping for somewhat better characterizations beyond the "I want to have your baby" variety. Almost all female characters are seen wearing off-the-shoulder nightgowns, seconds before characters gripe about the lack of histories written by women, which is kind of ridiculous. There are many cringe scenes.

Notable for Angelina Jolie doing an okay southern accent.

Margaret (I) (2011)

A chaotic film about a child of Chaos

[6/10 · 1 December 2021]

I watched this film after seeing a reference to it in an unrelated review. I watched the director's cut with even more extraneous material. As other reviewers have said, it's a mess and I don't know that Lisa's mother's Shirley Temple imitation moved the plot forward in any sense. This movie is about teenaged traumas. That's it and that is all of it. Lonergan makes that clear by the title and its reference during Lisa's lit class. "It is Margaret you are mourning," is the significant line from Gerard Manley Hopkins. Lisa is a child buffeted by traumas all around her-her parents' divorce, 9/11, her mother's conflicted emotions, the extreme latitude she's given in school, her absent father, and then the accident itself and the additional trauma of having the dying woman-whose death she inadvertently caused-using her name! Then without any psychological intervention (I kept wanting to yell "see a shrink!") she screws around, gets involved in busting up her mother's romance, has an abortion, confronts the possible father of her baby, recants her statement, initiates legal actions, on and on. Honestly, I don't think I'm the only person who expected her to throw herself in front of Mark Ruffalo's bus as a coup de grace. When the ending came and went without that I felt relief. Am I alone? I think that is a bit of emotional blackmail on the part of the director really. It seems like her only possible means of resolving her inner conflicts and instead she weeps at the Met like Cher, who also professed to dislike opera.

So what was Lonergan's vision for this movie?

I don't know, and few others do either, though theories abound. It's not without merit and I don't regret seeing all 3+ hours, but I'm still not certain that the director knew how to convey what I think was his actual primary theme: That teenagers are very narcissistic especially when surrounded by narcissistic adults. No adults in Lisa's life have any self-awareness, so they fail to comprehend that she's a walking disaster who spreads mayhem, chaos and even death wherever she goes because she reflects their own inabilities to put effective boundaries around their own bad behavior and then castigate or indulge her when she does likewise.

My one stray thought was of the poor hapless younger brother of this messy family, plunking out Claire de Lune on the piano with dogged determination. Perhaps he'll turn out better.

Leave It to Beaver: Party Invitation (1958) Season 1, Episode 15

Beaver Plays with Guns and Girls

[9/10 · 4 October 2021]

Beaver's classmate Linda Dennison invites him to a girls-only birthday party. Wally attempts yet again to impersonate Ward on the phone to help him avoid attending. Ward drags him into the party, where the miserable kid wins a huge doll. As the girls are plotting to play post office with Beaver as the only boy, he escapes into Mr. Dennison's man cave which is loaded with hunting trophies, African tribal masks and a huge gun collection, presided over by Mr. Dennison (former movie heartthrob Lyle Talbot, real life father of later seasons' pal Gilbert and PBS documentarian, Stephen Talbot) who handily walks the razor's edge between a hen-pecked husband and suburban he-man. Beaver is suitably impressed, and Ward is chastised for failing to notice he was dumping the poor kid into a situation rife with childish sexual harassment.

The Wolf of Wall Street (2013)

Frank Abignail goes into The Departed

[6/10 · 28 August 2021]

Scorsese is brilliant, DiCaprio is brilliant. The few women with clothes are pretty. My question is for Scorsese-can you make any movies about people who aren't larger than life?

Martin Scorsese is always masterful, but with each new BIG movie I get the feeling that he's reaching for a bigger dopamine hit each time. Nicholson showing us how evil and good occupy the same turf using the same tactics. Then a few years on, DiCaprio is back in the cocaine feed bag showing us he can go beyond Jack Nicholson with more women more money more sex more drugs.

In a way it's just too much, like a long walk that starts out scenic and amusing and becomes like a death march at the point of a gun. I felt obligated to stick it out though it's three totally degenerate hours and I feel like I need the steam room more than Leo to sweat out the toxins. Can I get these horrible images out of my head? Can you unsee the grotesqueries of Scorsese's hellscape of "pleasures"? I wish I could even though technically the film is very good-except for really being pornographic.

I wish I hadn't been convinced by reviews to consume this and I'm no prude. But there aren't any lessons here except that great performances aren't really enough when you don't like the characters in the least. And that's a problem.

Leave It to Beaver: Pet Fair (1960) Season 3, Episode 16

Laverne Laverne and parrot rentals

[7/10 · 20 July 2021]

This episode is notable for several reasons. Firstly, we learn that Beaver is capable of telling whoppers with absolutely no prompting from Larry Mondello. In fact, Larry's shocked face is the best thing in this episode.

Secondly, June sings "I'll never smile again" while peeling more apples, which is soon followed by an excerpt of George M. Cohan's WW1 hit "Over There" being sung to and by a pirate sidekick.

Also, we learn that Ward entertained a babe at a corner table in a restaurant on top of The Mark in San Francisco before they put really homeless people into hotel rooms, but the woman he was with wasn't June. Then we see Beaver suborn perjury, and we're shocked that Ward is capable of being a total pushover (if necessary for a troubled script), after the surprising revelation by Ma Cleaver that after being dumped in a boarding school by her family she had lied and said that her mother was a movie star, sending Ward into the dark of night to negotiate a rental on a parrot from Mayfield's pet store.

Also Miss Landers appears to have her only bad hair day ever while wearing a cast off sweater on the day Beaver lies to his class like a rug. (Maybe lying at school runs in the family?) Next day Miss Landers has apparently picked up her dry cleaning and a hair brush as Beaver confesses to her that he accepted a prize for the best pet and Miss Landers tells him to keep the prize (what?!) costing some other kid first prize for their efforts. There's no responsible adult in this entire episode. Both parents, the pet store owner, and Miss Landers all let Beaver skate for lying about having an outlandish pet. At least Larry Mondello or Judy should've punched Beaver for stealing first prize with a rented parrot. All in all, a very surprising episode full of uncharacteristic behavior by the entire cast.

Elvis '56 (1987 TV Movie)

The man who triggered the sexual revolution

[9/10 · 12 July 2021]

I had seen this years ago but it's currently listed on Amazon for rental with "2020" as the date.

Narrated by Levon Helm, this one hour documentary follows Elvis through his 21st year, from relative obscurity to the end of his anonymity.

We see a ludicrous juxtaposition that occurred on two different live tv shows-Perry Como singing "Boom Diggity" while Elvis gyrates to "Hound Dog." Como was safe. Elvis was dangerous. There was zero doubt about who's influence would triumph. What is left unsaid in this comparison is that Americans had been flirting with danger for decades. After all, how "how you gonna keep 'em down on the farm after they've seen Par-ee" was the question posed in both world wars. Elvis was both innocent, sexual, country, blues, black R&B, and gorgeous.

The film follows him wandering into a store in Times Square, fully unaware that he would never be anonymous again. Various tv hosts attempt to quell critics of his hips by putting him in a tux or teaming him with a Bassett hound but he couldn't be tamed.

Ironically, he got wardrobe advice from Liberace and longed to be like the closeted James Dean. Like any devoted son he bought his parents a house, and hopped off a train in Memphis to walk home alone.

Soon after his life was forever changed by the inevitable fame his talent demanded.

This year before the deluge is a quixotic, painful look at his loss of innocence. A must see.

Elvis: Summer of '56 (2011)

The man who gave us the sexual revolution

[8/10 · 12 July 2021]

The most stunning moment in a short feature stuffed with stunning moments from 1956 is a clip of a chorus line of tap-dancing women playing xylophones contrasted with Elvis aged 20. One is white bread bland, the other raw sex. A mere month or so later Elvis shopped in Times Square with complete anonymity-something he'd never be able to do for the rest of his life.

This low key documentary doesn't make much of the shockwaves that Elvis' gyrations and twitchy body clearly caused, because these rare clips illustrate what happened so very clearly. Girls squealed, critics panned him. When he played Las Vegas, Liberace(!) gave him advice on how to dress to please audiences, maybe missing the obvious, that Elvis was pleasing them like crazy.

Elvis was a force of nature and once the girls (and probably their mothers too) had witnessed his singing and heard his blues-rockabilly sex-charged lyrics there was no way to throw that train into reverse. Even if he had never moved his hips on camera, it was too late. Whether that was a good thing for society can be debated, but it was a great thing for American music.

Leave It to Beaver: Baby Picture (1959) Season 3, Episode 5

I was young! I needed the money! Beaver in the raw?!

[8/10 · 29 June 2021]

Poor Beaver. June is such a mom that she sent Miss Landers a baby photo of Theodore sprawled on a bearskin rug. Ward is a lunkhead and obsessed about his lighter and tells him to "take it like a man" without learning the particulars.

In the end Beaver goes to Miss Landers who is the best teacher ever, and Ward finally does the right thing. The mythical Angela Valentine wins the contest-but no mention is made of her sixth toe.

Leave It to Beaver: Beaver's Prize (1959) Season 3, Episode 4

God gets you like crooks get hit by trains

[9/10 · 29 June 2021]

Beaver gets coaxed by Larry Mondello yet again and ends up with an "English racing bike" as proof of his disobedience, and no plausible explanation. We hear yet another tale of the unseen Angela Valentine, and Larry offers up a rather sober explanation of God's actions in reality and the movies. Mrs. Mondello is relieved that at least this time Larry did something wrong when Mr. Mondello happened to be in town.

Eye Witness (1950)

Reputation is what your neighbors think of you....

[8/10 · 28 June 2021]

I adore Robert Montgomery. He was a totally classy guy without being self-consciously so.

Here he plays a tough NYC attorney who is urged by his secretary to not just send money to the man who saved his life in the war but to cross the Atlantic to assist in his defense.

Montgomery directed and while there's a blessed minimum of cutesy quaintness added in the English village setting, it has a consistently British "literacy" bordering on wordiness, perhaps not out of place in courtroom scenes. It's all very low key and well done. Robert Montgomery had not lost any of his style since his early days and is still wry and bemused in one of his final acting roles.

Leave It to Beaver: New Doctor (1958) Season 1, Episode 31

Sick with Envy

[7/10 · 19 June 2021]

Wally gets a sore throat and gets treated with pills, an airplane model and oodles of parental fussing.

We learn that Ward has a secretary named Grace whom he sends out for the chocolate chip ice cream before going home from the office.

Must be nice-except for Grace.

Beaver decides to get in on the sickness racket too, fishing for gifts from his surly classmates and worrying about the new doctor possibly invasive diagnostic methods.

Leave It to Beaver: The State Versus Beaver (1958) Season 1, Episode 24

Beaver's Hot Rod Lincoln

[9/10 · 19 June 2021]

Ward helps Wally and Beaver build a "one lunger" go-cart, and we see the earliest example of Larry Mondello urging him to do something stupid. Also the first example of Wally acting in loco parentis, only this time in front of someone who knows legal terms dead cold.