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A Streetcar Named Desire (1951)
...Blanche, who wanted so much to stay a lady...
Filmmaker(s): Elia Kazan

A fading southern belle moves in with her sister in New Orleans where her ferocious brother-in-law takes stabs at her sanity.

Mass Transit vast majority of films use someone else's vocabulary, so when you can run across one that helped create that vocabulary it is cause for celebration. Usually the originality is in the vision of the filmmaker, but here it is in the manner of...


Published December 11, 2024
| Categorised as Fours, IMDB Comments |
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Othello (1951)
Orson Welles' magnificent screening of Shakespeare's immortal tragedy
Filmmaker(s): Orson Welles

When a secret marriage is planned between Othello, a Moorish general, and Desdemona, the daughter of Senator Brabantio, her old suitor Roderigo takes it hard. He allies himself with Iago, who has his own grudge against Othello, and the two conspire to bring Othello down. When their first plan, to have him accused of witchcraft, fails, they plant evidence intended to make him believe Desdemona is unfaithful.

Dimensional Filmmaking on Shakespeare films is rather like admiring Easter Eggs. First the inside: this was never a great play, relative to Shakespeare's other works. His great plays are about ideas, with characters as vectors to prod and activate them. This play is merely about characters,...


Published December 10, 2024
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An American in Paris (1951)
What a joy! It's M-G-M's Technicolor musical!
Filmmaker(s): Vincente Minnelli

Jerry Mulligan is an exuberant American expatriate in Paris trying to make a reputation as a painter. His friend Adam is a struggling concert pianist who's a long time associate of a famous French singer, Henri Baurel. A lonely society woman, Milo Roberts, takes Jerry under her wing and supports him, but is interested in more than his art.

<strong>Sienna Shoes Red Shoes' changed the world of film. It was deeply self-referential (a performance about a performance with the two enfolded) and had the extra advance of sometimes making the camera a dancer. So Gene Kelly tried his own ‘Shoes’. MGM refused to...


Published April 2, 2023
| Categorised as IMDB Comments, Twos |
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The African Queen (1951)
The greatest adventure a man ever lived… with a woman!
Filmmaker(s): John Huston

At the start of the First World War, in the middle of Africa’s nowhere, a gin soaked riverboat captain is persuaded by a strong-willed missionary to go down river and face-off a German warship.

Leeches Cruise played an exaggerated version of himself in “Magnolia,” following a tradition set long ago. We liked to believe that the sex sirens we saw in movies the 30’s were really that way in life and probably they were. John Wayne followed, never playing anything...


Published December 12, 2022
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Alice in Wonderland (1951)
A world of wonders in one great picture!

On a golden afternoon, young Alice follows a White Rabbit, who disappears down a nearby rabbit hole. Quickly following him, she tumbles into the burrow - and enters the merry, topsy-turvy world of Wonderland! Memorable songs and whimsical escapades highlight Alice's journey, which culminates in a madcap encounter with the Queen of Hearts - and her army of playing cards!

Charlie’s Flowers spent a goodly part of my life becoming an expert in the Alice material, so have had to work to temper this comment: My initial feeling on this project is one of utter despair, as Walt and company took something that was both...


Published November 30, 2022
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