Author Archives: Lisa Marie Bowman

Film Review: Children of Divorce (dir by Frank Lloyd and Josef von Sternberg)

Posted on by Lisa Marie Bowman

The 1927 silent melodrama, Children of Divorce, opens at a private Catholic boarding school in Paris.  It’s a place for rich and idle parents to dump off their children while they enjoy the City of Lights.  Jean Waddington is dropped off at the school and struggles to make friends until she meets the vivacious Kitty Flanders.  Jean and Kitty bond because they are both children of divorced parents.  (Kitty says that she has only one mother but that’s she’s had four different fathers.)  Jean meets Ted Larrabee, who is Kitty’s neighbor back in New York and who has also been dumped off at the school by his divorced parents.

Flash forward a few years and Kitty (Clara Bow), Jean (Esther Ralston), and Ted (Gary Cooper) are all young adults.  Kitty is in love with Prince Vico (Einar Hansen) but the Prince’s father refuses to allow Vico to consider marrying her because Kitty’s mother (played by future gossip columnist and Queen of Hollywood, Hedda Hopper) is not rich.  Believing that the only way that she’ll ever be happy is if she marries a rich man, Kitty set her eyes on Ted.  Ted, however, wants to marry Jean but Jean says that she’ll only consider marrying Ted if he gets a real job and proves that he can do something more than just live off of his father’s money.

Ted starts his own architectural firm and proves that he’s capable of hard work.  However, when Kitty convinces Ted to celebrate his success by going out drinking with her….

Ted wakes up with a hangover.  He soon discovers that he’s also woken up with a wife!  While he was drunk, he married Kitty!  Ted is stunned.  Jean is heart-broken.  She begs Kitty to grant Ted a divorce so that she can marry him but Kitty reveals that she has no intention of ever getting divorced.  As she explains it, Kitty has been raised to marry a rich man, Ted is rich, and now, she’s married to him.  Why would Kitty want to give that up?  When Ted says that he’ll file for the divorce, Jean tells him that she can’t marry a man who would leave his wife and then she leaves for Europe….

Of course, that’s not the end of the story.  This wouldn’t be a silent melodrama if it ended that simply.  Instead, years later, Kitty does come to see the error of her actions and she also discovers that her true love remains Prince Vico.  But, by that point, it’s too late and, of course, Jean still refuses to marry a divorced man.  Kitty seeks redemption in the most extreme was possible….

Clocking in at a brisk 70 minutes, Children of Divorce is a wonderful showcase for Clara Bow, who was born 118 years ago on this date.  Gary Cooper is properly handsome and sincere as Ted and Esther Ralston is lovely if a bit boring as Jean but the film ultimately belongs to Clara Bow, who brings so much vitality and energy to her role that it doesn’t matter that Kitty tricks Ted into marrying her and destroys all of Jean’s romantic dreams.  Most viewers will instantly sympathize with Kitty and, to be honest, it’s kind of hard not to be on her side.  Kitty has fun.  Kitty refuses to let society stand in her way.  While Jean makes a list of demands about what she needs Ted to do before she can even consider marrying him, Kitty encourages Ted to loosen up and enjoy his success.  Kitty is the one who I think most viewers, at the very least, would want to be friends with.  While Jean tries to run away from her problems, Kitty is determined to live her best life.  Indeed, Kitty’s ultimate redemption is all the more effective because, once again, Kitty is the one who is making things happen while Ted and Jean just passively accept the conventions of society.

Clara Bow was one of the greatest of the silent film stars and Children of Divorce shows why.  As opposed to many of the other actresses of the day, Clara Bow was convincingly cast as women who were willing to do whatever needed to be done to find happiness.  Sadly, Clara Bow’s later years were not happy ones.  She deserved better than the world gave her.  Watching her in films like this one and It feel like looking out a window into the past, a time when it seemed like anything was possible.

Live Tweet Alert: Watch Invaders From Mars with #ScarySocial

Posted on by Lisa Marie Bowman

 

As some of our regular readers undoubtedly know, I am involved in a few weekly live tweets on twitter.  I host #FridayNightFlix every Friday, I co-host #ScarySocial on Saturday, and I am one of the five hosts of #MondayActionMovie!  Every week, we get together.  We watch a movie.  We tweet our way through it.

Tonight, for #ScarySocial, I will be hosting 1986’s Invaders from Mars!  The Martians have invaded!  Can Karen Black, the army, and a 12 year-old defeat them!?  Join us to find out!

If you want to join us on Saturday night, just hop onto twitter, start the film at 9 pm et, and use the #ScarySocial hashtag!  The film is available on Prime.  I’ll be there co-hosting and I imagine some other members of the TSL Crew will be there as well.  It’s a friendly group and welcoming of newcomers so don’t be shy.

4 Shots From 4 Films: Special Enzo G. Castellari Edition

Posted on by Lisa Marie Bowman

4 Or More Shots From 4 Or More Films is just what it says it is, 4 shots from 4 of our favorite films. As opposed to the reviews and recaps that we usually post, 4 Shots From 4 Films lets the visuals do the talking!

Today, the Shattered Lens whishes a happy 85th birthday to the legendary Italian director, Enzo G. Castellari!  Here are….

4 Shots From 4 Enzo G. Castellari Films

Keoma (1976, dir by Enzo G. Castellari, DP: Aaice Parolin)

The Last Shark (1981, dir by Enzo G. Castellari, P: Alberto Spagnoli)

1990: Bronx Warriors (1982, dir by Enzo G. Castellari, DP: Sergio Salvati)

Escape From The Bronx (1983, dir by Enzo G. Castellari, DP: Blasco Giurato)

Scenes I Love: The Sopranos Stage An Intervention

Posted on by Lisa Marie Bowman

Perusing the imdb, I saw that today was the birthday of the late Tony Sirico.  Sirico was a former mob associate who, after serving a term in prison, reinvented himself as an actor.  Because of his background, he was often typecast as gangsters but he also proved himself to be an intelligent performer with perfect comedic timing.  For a lot of us, he will always be remembered for playing Paulie on The Sopranos.

Today scene that I love comes from The Sopranos and it features excellent work from the entire cast, especially Tony Sirico.  In this scene from the 2002 episode “The Strong, Silent Type,” the Sopranos and their associates stage an intervention for Christopher Moltisanti and it goes about as well as you might expect.  In just five minutes, this scenes manages to capture everything that The Sopranos was about, as well as giving each member of the cast a chance to shine.  Since this is Sirico’s birthday, I’ll just recommend that viewers especially watch Paulie’s facial expressions while Adriana reads her letter to Christopher.

Retro Television Reviews: The Master 1.12 “Rogues”

Posted on by Lisa Marie Bowman

Welcome to Retro Television Reviews, a new feature where we review some of our favorite and least favorite shows of the past! On Fridays, I will be reviewing The Master, which ran on NBC from January to August of 1984.  The show can be found on Tubi!

Max and McAllister continue their trip through California!

Episode 1.12 “Rogues”

(Dir by Gordon Hessler, originally aired on August 10th, 1984)

This week’s episode finds Max and McAllister on Los Angeles’s famed Rodeo Drive.  We know that this episode takes place on Rodeo Drive because every single establishing shot opens with a close-up of the street sign.  It’s as if someone in production said, “Do not let them forget that this episode is not only set on Rodeo Drive but we filmed it there as well!”

Wow, a television program filmed in Los Angeles!  The Master was all about spoiling their audience.

Here’s my thing with Rodeo Drive — the word is pronounced Ro-Dee-O.  Get out of here with all that Roe-Day-O nonsense, you yankees.

Anyway, this episode continues last week’s theme of McAllister and Max dropping in on people from Max’s past.  Apparently, the hunt for John Peter McAllister’s long lost daughter has been abandoned so that Max can drop in on his old high school buddies.  Seeing as how it hasn’t even been ten years since Max graduated from high school whereas McAllister has never even met his daughter and it’s totally possible that McAllister’s ninja rivals may be trying to kill her, it seems a bit odd that this is what Max and McAllister are concentrating on but whatever.  We’re nearly done with this show anyway.

Max visits his ex-girlfriend, Talia (Cindy Harrell), at the health club where she works.  Talia is an aerobics instructor, which means that there’s a lot of spandex in this episode.  While McAllister deals with a trainer who takes one look at him and declares him to be in terrible shape (and she has a point because, unlike his stunt double, Lee Van Cleef was noticeably overweight and often seemed to be winded on The Master), Max talks to Talia and discovers that Talia’s brother, Jerry (Paul Tulley), became a cop and is now missing!  Max promises to help her find Jerry.

However, it turns out that Jerry is just hiding outside the health club.  When he sees Max’s van, he tosses a note inside of it, asking Max and McAllister to meet him.  (How exactly did Jerry know that Max and McAllister would be able to help him?)  It turns out that, while investigating a series of Rodeo Drive robberies, Jerry discovered that the culprits were rogue cops who had been hired by a local gallery owner.  Now, the crooked policemen are after Jerry!  Needless to say, it’s time for McAllister to put on his black ninja outfit so that Lee Van Cleef’s stunt double can beat up some corrupt law enforcers!

This was not a particularly memorable episode.  The corrupt cops were generic villains and even the fight scenes, which were usually The Master‘s saving grace, felt sloppy and rushed.  While it was always obvious that this show was dependent on stunt doubles, it was especially obvious in this episode as the stand-ins for both Van Cleef and Van Patten didn’t even resemble their respective actors.  There was a brief moment of hope when the action moved to one of those police academy shooting ranges, full of fake buildings and cardboard targets but the show never really took advantage of the location’s potential.  This was one of those episodes where it felt like the basic plot could have been used for a dozen other shows without having to make anything more than a few cosmetic changes.  It could have just as easily been an episode of Half Nelson.

(L.A. — you belong to me!  No, no, we’ve moved on….)

Next week …. The Master ends!  Will McAllister even mention his missing daughter during the show’s final episode?  We’ll find out!

Live Tweet Alert: Join #FridayNightFlix for Earth Girls Are Easy!

Posted on by Lisa Marie Bowman

 

As some of our regular readers undoubtedly know, I am involved in a few weekly live tweets on twitter and I hope to continue to be until the site finally becomes unusable.  (It’s going to happen eventually so enjoy it while you can!)  I host #FridayNightFlix every Friday, I co-host #ScarySocial on Saturday, and I am one of the five hosts of #MondayActionMovie!  Every week, we get together.  We watch a movie.  We tweet our way through it.

Tonight, at 10 pm et, #FridayNightFlix has got 1988’s Earth Girls Are Easy, starring Geena Davis and Jeff Goldblum!

If you want to join us this Friday, just hop onto twitter, start the movie at 10 pm et, and use the #FridayNightFlix hashtag!  It’s a friendly group and welcoming of newcomers so don’t be shy.

Earth Girls Are Easy is available on Prime and Tubi!  See you there!

Here’s The Trailer For Boy Kills World

Posted on by Lisa Marie Bowman

To be honest, Boy Kills World sounds like the logical conclusion of the Boy Meets World cinematic universe but apparently, this upcoming film has nothing to do with the 90s sitcom in which Topanga was basically bullied into getting married during her first year of college.

Instead, judging from this trailer, Boy Kills World appears to be the latest over-the-top action parody.  I have to admit that I chuckled a few more times than I would like to admit while watching this trailer.  The whole “I stole my inner voice from Mortal Kombat” thing made me laugh out loud.  Honestly, despite my general aversion to excessive violence, this film might be actually be kind of …. fun?

Produced by Sam Raimi, this film is coming out sometime next year, just in time for the Ben Savage congressional campaign.

Retro Television Reviews: City Guys 5.17 “Prose and Cons” and 5.18 “Why Y’All Clippin”

Posted on by Lisa Marie Bowman

Welcome to Retro Television Reviews, a feature where we review some of our favorite and least favorite shows of the past!  On Thursdays, I will be reviewing City Guys, which ran on NBC from 1997 to 2001.  Almost the entire show is currently streaming on YouTube!

This week, L-Train becomes a poet and “the kids” try to prank Ms. Noble because they literally have no life beyond obsessing on their principal.  But before we get to any of that, let’s listen to that theme song and thrill to the shots of Scott Whyte and Wesley Jonathan wandering around New York City and totally looking like tourists.

Episode 5.17 “Prose and Cons”

(Dir by Frank Bonner, originally aired on November 3rd, 2001)

Chris, Al, and Jamal are obsessed with pranking Ms. Noble.  Apparently, in his entire history as principal of Manny High, Ms. Noble has never been pranked.  It’s something in which she takes a lot of pride, to the extent that she taunts Chris, Al, and Jamal about the fact that she’s never been pranked….

Does this sound familiar?  Yes, because Ms. Bliss did the same thing on the forerunner to Saved By The Bell, Good Morning, Miss Bliss.  Then, when she sat down on a chair that had been covered in brown paint and ruined her sweater, she accused Screech of being responsible and held a mock trail in her classroom.  Of course, it turned out that Ms. Bliss actually pranked herself to teach the class a valuable lesson and to traumatize Screech in the process.

Anyway, the boys try to prank Ms. Noble by sabotaging a water fountain but that just leads to Cassidy getting sprayed by a bunch of water.  And then they attempted to replace her gardening magazine with a magazine full of naked men that Jamal just happened to have with him for some reason but, once again, Cassidy and Dawn showed up and caused Ms. Noble to accidentally spill coffee on the magazine before Ms. Noble could read it.  For their final attempt, Chris, Jamal, and Al somehow sneak a bunch of farm animals and several bakes of hay into Ms. Noble’s office.  They manage to prank her but, while Al is sneaking in the animals, Ms. Noble unknowingly praises Chris and Jamal for showing so much maturity in not trying to prank her.  So, Ms. Noble gets pranked but Chris and Jamal end up feeling guilty.

The prank stuff was stupid but it was at least kind of funny in the very silly way that Peter Engel’s better shows often were.  Of course, the prank stuff was also only the B-plot.

The A-plot features L-Train suddenly becoming a poet and winning so many new fans that he starts to ignore his girlfriend, Kianna.  The main problem with this storyline is that L-Train’s poetry sucked and the idea that he would become a hero at the local jazz club due to his doggerel was never a believable one.  As always, Steven Daniel delivered his lines with a likable sincerity but the story itself just felt rushed.  City Guys was nearly over by this point and it’s hard not to feel that the writers were just treading water.

Episode 5.18 “Why Y’All Clippin”

(Dir by Frank Bonner, originally aired on November 3rd, 2001)

Here’s the plot description from Wikipedia:

In this clip show, the whole gang is having problems over a yearbook picture and are giving each other the silent treatment. So Ms. Noble calls everybody to Manny High on Saturday to work things out by reflecting on memories of the good, the bad, and the ugly that they had over the span of their time as friends.

Hey, it’s a clip show!  I hate those.  I guess it’s a good thing that this is one of the season 5 episodes that is not available on YouTube.

Retro Television Reviews: The Love Boat 2.25 “Murder on the High Seas/Sounds of Silence/Cyrano de Bricker”

Posted on by Lisa Marie Bowman

Welcome to Retro Television Reviews, a feature where we review some of our favorite and least favorite shows of the past!  On Wednesdays, I will be reviewing the original Love Boat, which aired on ABC from 1977 to 1986!  The series can be streamed on Paramount Plus!

This week, Sonny Bono shocks the squares!

Episode 2.25 “Murder on the High Seas/Sounds of Silence/Cyrano de Bricker”

(Dir by Richard Kinon, originally aired on March 17th, 1979)

Uh-oh!  The singer who Julie hired to perform on the cruise had to cancel!  Fortunately, Gopher has a connection at a talent agent and he is able to recruit a replacement.  Meet Dominic Dark!

He’s pretty fearsome!  When he arrives on the boat, he’s accompanied by his manager (Arte Johnson) and a living snake.  When he performs in the Acapulco Lounge, he destroys his instruments and sings about how much he loves rebelling against conventional society.  But underneath that KISS-inspired makeup and behind those sub-Alice Cooper-style lyrics …. wait a minute …. is that….

Yes, this is one of the four episode of The Love Boat to feature singer and future U.S. Rep. Sonny Bono as a passenger on The Love Boat.  (Fred “Gopher” Grandy would also go on to serve in the House as well.)  Not surprisingly, Mr. Dark turns out to actually be a rather mild-mannered gentleman named Phil Backstrom.  Phil wants to abandon all the gimmicks and just make a name for himself as a singer but his manager orders him to keep putting on the makeup and to keep upsetting the squares.  While on the cruise, Phil meets and falls in love with Sara (Sheila Lenham), who understands his love of music and who is also deaf.

It’s actually a pretty sweet story and Sonny Bono is so likable that it’s easy to see how he managed to go from singing to having a career in politics.  But the main appeal of this entire storyline, and indeed this entire episode, is the chance to see Sonny Bono playing a 70s-style shock rocker.  It’s one of those ideas that is so ludicrous that it’s actually kind of fun.  Bono looks so awkward in his makeup that it’s hard not to root for him.  I also liked the fact that the other largely middle-aged and obviously wealthy passengers all loved Phil’s act.  It seemed like Phil’s biggest fans were the same people who, in theory, were supposed to be shocked by his antics.

As for the other two stories, Jill St. John plays Mitzi, an old friend of Doc’s who boards the boat with her new husband, Vinnie (Charlie Callas).  It’s supposed to be their honeymoon cruise but Vinnie seems to be more interested in gambling than honeymooning.  At one point, he says that, after living with Mitzi for two years before getting married, the honeymoon just feels like another trip.  Needless to say, Mitzi leaves their cabin and decides to spend the cruise in Doc’s office.  Doc Bricker is able to bring Mitzi and Vinnie back together but it’s hard not to feel that Mitzi made the right decision when she left Vinnie the first time.  I mean, Vinnie’s a jerk!  And he seems to have a bit of a gambling problem….

Finally, Isaac thinks that he overhears two people (Peter Lawford and Dana Wynter) plotting to kill Captain Stubing.  This leads to Isaac and eventually the entire crew getting into a panic but it turns out that Lawford and Wynter are just two mystery novelists plotting out their latest book.  The main problem with this plot is that it hinged on a mistake that Isaac, at least based on what we’ve seen of him in previous episodes, normally wouldn’t make.  Misunderstanding a conversation seemed more like something that Gopher would do.  Isaac has always been the smart and down-to-Earth member of the crew and Ted Lange never looks quite as comfortable with slapstick antics of this episode as Fred Grandy probably would have.

In the end, this was fairly negligible episode that was occasionally amusing due to the efforts of future congressman Sonny Bono.