Cleaning Out The DVR #15: Random Harvest (dir by Mervyn LeRoy)

Posted on March 12, 2016 by Lisa Marie Bowman

This morning, as a part of my continuing effort to watch 38 films by Friday and clean out the DVR, I watched Random Harvest, a romantic melodrama from 1942.

And when I say that Random Harvest is a melodrama, I’m not exaggerating. During the first hour of the film, I found myself thinking that if Random Harvest were made today, it would probably be a Lifetime movie. By the time the second hour started, I realized that it would actually probably be one of those heavily hyped miniseries that ends up being broadcast on A&E, Bravo, and Lifetime at the same time. This is one of those big, epic stories where, every few minutes, a new plot twist emerges.

When the film opens during the first World War, John Smith (Ronald Colman) is a patient at a British asylum. He knows that he was once a soldier. He knows that he was gassed during a battle. He knows that he’s recovering from extreme shell shock and it’s still a struggle for him to relate to other human beings. He knows that he will probably spend the rest of his life as a patient at the asylum. He also knows that his name is not John Smith. He’s not sure what his real name is because he suffers from amnesia.

One night, a message comes to the asylum. The war has ended! All of the doctor and orderlies go out to celebrate, leaving Smith unguarded. Smith simply walks out of the asylum and eventually makes his way to a nearby town. It’s there that he meets Paula (Greer Garson), a kind-hearted singer who invites Smith to join her traveling theatrical troupe.

Paula and Smith fall in love, end up getting married, and have a child together. Paula encourages Smith to become a writer and eventually, a publisher in Liverpool asks to meet with him. However, when Smith goes to Liverpool, he ends up getting hit by a car. When he regains consciousness, he suddenly knows that his name is Charles Rainier and that he’s rich! However, he no longer remembers that he was once named John Smith, that he’s married to Paula, or that he has a child.

The years pass. Charles returns to his old life of servants, money, and political ambition. His stepniece, Kitty (Susan Peters), falls in love with him but Charles, for his part, cannot stop wondering about what happened between getting gassed in World War I and getting hit by that car in Liverpool.

Meanwhile, Paula refuses to believe that Smith had abandoned her. Even after she has him legally declared dead, she continue to believe that he’s out there. And then one day, she sees a picture of Charles Rainier. She also learns that Rainier needs an executive secretary, which just happens to be what Paula does when she’s not singing…

Just from reading that plot, you probably think that Random Harvest is an incredibly silly film, that type that, if it were made today, would star Katharine Heigl and maybe a British guy who had a minor role on Game of Thrones. But, dammit, Random Harvest works! Filmmakers in the 30s and 40s knew how to make this type of melodrama totally compelling and believable. There’s not a hint of snarkiness or cynicism to be found in Random Harvest and, as a result, it feels almost churlish to criticize the plot for being implausible. Sincerity saves this film.

Random Harvest was nominated for Best Picture but it lost to another film starring Greer Garson, Mrs. Miniver. However, Garson gave a far better performance in Random Harvest than she did in Miniver. When you watch most of her film today, Greer Garson always comes across as talented but a little boring and obvious in her technique. (She was the Meryl Streep of her day.) In Random Harvest, Garson actually gets to sing and danger and laugh and behave like a human being. After seeing her in Blossoms In The Dust, Mrs. Miniver, and Sunrise at Campobello, watching her performance in Random Harvest is akin to an acting revelation.

Meanwhile, Ronald Colman also does a great work at both Smith and Charles (and they really are two separate characters). Admittedly, Colman does come across as being a little bit too old for the role (and the age difference between him and Susan Peters does add a certain odd subtext to the scenes between Charles and Kitty) but, otherwise, he’s totally and completely credible as the character. When he’s Smith, he speaks in a halting, uncertain tone and he walks like he’s still learning how to put one foot in front of the other. When he becomes Charles, he’s definitely more confident but he still moves like a man who feels as if it’s his duty to carry the weight of the world on his shoulders.

(I have to admit that I’ve always found it strange that Margaret Mitchell apparently wanted Ronald Colman to play Rhett Butler in Gone With The Wind. Watching his performance here, I still could not see Colman as Rhett but he would have made a great Ashley Wilkes.)

The beautiful Susan Peters was nominated for best supporting actress for her performance as Kitty. Random Harvest was her first major role and she gives such a great and likable performance that it makes it all the more tragic that her career was cut short. Just three years after appearing in Random Harvest, Susan was accidentally shot by her husband. Though she survived, she would never walk again. When she died, at the age of 31 in 1952, the official cause was pneumonia but it was also said that she had stopped eating and drinking and had literally lost the will to live. Whether you love Random Harvest or you think it’s just a silly melodrama, you should watch it just to see Susan Peters’s great performance and to consider what could have been.

Cleaning Out The DVR #14: The Letter (dir by William Wyler)

Posted on March 11, 2016 by Lisa Marie Bowman

After watching Break-Up Nightmare, I watched one more film that was sitting on my DVR. That film was 1940’s The Letter. I had recorded it off of TCM and, up until last night, I had never seen it before. I’m happy to say that I’ve seen it now because it’s a great movie, featuring a fascinating mystery, feverish atmosphere, excellent supporting performances, and a ferociously brilliant performance from the great Bette Davis.

Filmed in a dream-like noir style by William Wyler, The Letter opens on a rubber plantation in Malaysia. It’s night and the camera pans over the native workers all trying to sleep through the hot night. Eventually, the camera reaches the big house, where the plantation’s wealthy and, of course, white manager lives. (The contrast between the wealthy Europeans interlopers and the natives who work for them is a reoccurring theme throughout The Letter.) A gunshot rings out. A man stumbles out of the house. Following after him is Leslie Crosbie (Bette Davis). She is carrying a gun and, as we watch, she shoots the man a few more times. She shoots him until she’s sure that he’s dead.

Leslie is the wife of Robert Crosbie (Herbert Marshall, who also played Davis’s husband in The Little Foxes) and the man that she just killed is Geoff Hammond, a respected member of Malaysia’s European community. When the police arrive, Leslie explains that Hammond “tried to make love to me” and that she was forced to kill him in self-defense. Leslie is arrested for the crime and will have to face trial but everyone knows that she will be acquitted. After all, Leslie and her husband are members are well-connected members of the upper, European class.

However, Leslie’s lawyer, Herbert Joyce (James Stephenson), has doubts about Leslie’s story. He points out that she sounds just a little too rehearsed. His suspicions are confirmed when his clerk, Ong Chi Seng (Sen Yung), tells him about the existence of a letter that Leslie wrote on the day that Hammond was killed. In the letter, Leslie orders Hammond to come see her and threatens to reveal the details of their relationship if he doesn’t. Ong explains that he only has a copy of the letter. The original is in the hands of Hammond’s widow (Gale Sondergaard) and she’s willing to sell the letter for a substantial price.

Not surprisingly The Letter is dominated by Bette Davis but, for me, the most memorable character is the outwardly obsequies but inwardly calculating Ong Chi Seng. Sen Yung plays him with such a polite manner and a gentle voice that it’s actually incredibly shocking when he reveals his true nature. And yet, even after he’s been exposed as a potential blackmailer, his manner never changes. Meanwhile, Gale Sondergaard only appears in a handful of scenes but she steals every one of them with her steely glare.

In order to get the letter away from Ong and Mrs. Hammond, Leslie and Joyce have to convince Robert to give them the money without allowing him to learn the letter’s content. But, what neither one of them realizes, is that Mrs. Hammond has plans that go beyond mere blackmail.

The Letter is an atmospheric melodrama that plays out almost like a fever dream and it also features one of Davis’s best performances. It was nominated for best picture but it lost to another atmospheric melodrama, Alfred Hitchcock’s Rebecca.

Cleaning Out The DVR #13: Break-Up Nightmare (dir by Mark Quod)

Posted on March 11, 2016 by Lisa Marie Bowman

After I tried to watch Bad Sister, the next film on my DVR was Break-Up Nightmare, a film which premiered on Lifetime on March 6th.

Break-Up Nightmare is a film from The Asylum, the same wonderful people who have given us the Sharknado films, Wuthering High School, and Santa Claws. As I’ve made clear on this site, I absolutely love Asylum films. Though their films may be low-budget, they’re often more entertaining than the big budget epics that are released by the major studios. Full of inside jokes and deliberately over-the-top storylines, Asylum films are the perfect party movies. These are movies that demand to be seen with a group of your closest and snarkiest friends. Needless to say, when Break-Up Nightmare opened with that “The Asylum presents…” credit, I was excited.

Break-Up Nightmare is actually a little bit more serious than your typical Asylum film but then again, it’s not about flying sharks or talking kittens. Instead, Break-Up Nightmare deals with a serious subject. Or, I should say, at the least first 45 minutes deal with a serious subject.

Recent high school graduate Rachel (Celesta DeAstis) is taking a year off before going to college, mostly so she can work and actually be able to afford to go to the best music school possible. Her jerky jock boyfriend, Troy (Mark Grossman), has received a football scholarship and will be leaving in the fall. However, before Mark leaves, he convinces Rachel to pose for some pictures (yep, those type of pictures) so he won’t forget her while he’s away. Rachel later asks him to delete the pictures but soon discovers that Troy didn’t do so. She also discovers that Troy has been getting texts from another girl and she dumps him. When Troy starts to get belligerent, Rachel’s mother — Barbara (Jennifer Dorogi) — kicks him out of the house.

Free of Troy, Rachel looks forward to getting on with her life. Except, of course, people are looking at her strangely. At work, scummy frat boys show up and ask her provocative questions. At the movies, a creepy middle-aged man sits down behind her and asks, “How’s it going?” Finally, Rachel’s best friend, Ryan (Freeman Lyon), shows her a revenge porn site called LifeRuinerz.com. On the site, Rachel sees the pictures that Troy took of her.

Rachel’s life starts to spiral out of control as, apparently, everyone in the world has either seen the picture or heard about them. When she goes to the police, she’s told that the cops are busy solving real crimes and don’t have time to help someone who voluntarily posed for smutty pictures. At church, the sermon is about the dangers of lust and a judgmental old woman glares at Rachel and tells her that she should dress more modestly. (Been there.) Someone breaks into the house and spray paints “Whore” on the garage door. When Barbara demands that the site remove her daughter’s pictures, she soon finds that her face has been photoshopped into a pornographic image and she loses her teaching job.

And, through it all, Troy continues to deny having put the pictures on the site. It’s easy to suspect Troy because he’s such a jerk but then suddenly, he’s arrested on child pornography charges. Rachel only has to look at one picture to realize that, just as happened to Barbara, Troy’s face has been photoshopped onto someone else. But if Troy isn’t the one responsible, who is?

Meanwhile, pervs across the world are sitting in front of their laptops and watching Barbara undress, the result of a hidden webcam that someone has placed in the house…

So, Break-Up Nightmare starts out as a fairly serious look at revenge porn and it actually makes a lot of important points, the big one being that the whole “pay us and we’ll remove your picture” thing is a scam. There were certain parts of Break-Up Nightmare that hit close to home and made me cringe because, quite frankly, we’ve all been there and we’ve all done things without considering the consequences. But, of course, this is an Asylum Film and, once the important lessons have been taught, the film goes totally batshit crazy in that way that we all love. Suddenly, the film isn’t just about revenge porn. It’s about a diabolical stalker who has come up with a needlessly complicated scheme to accomplish a single goal.

And you know what?

We wouldn’t expect or want anything less from either The Asylum or Lifetime. All you people who complain about plausibility or plot holes, you can go watch another network and think about how you’ve got it all figure out. It’s the implausible melodrama that makes a movie like Break-Up Nightmare fun.

That said, the main reason I liked Break-Up Nightmare was because of the very realistic and truthful depiction of the loving, protective, and occasionally testy relationship between Barbara and Rachel. Jennifer Dorogi and Celesta DeAstis were totally believable as mother and daughter. Barbara may have been overprotective but she was also not going to let anyone get away with hurting her daughter. Barbara basically spent the entire movie kicking ass and it was a lot of fun to watch.

Go Barbara!

Go Asylum!

Go Break-up Nightmare.

Cleaning Out The DVR #12: Bad Sister (dir by Doug Campbell)

Posted on March 11, 2016 by Lisa Marie Bowman

Last night, after I finished with Going My Way, I decided to stick with the Catholic theme by rewatching Bad Sister. Bad Sister aired on Lifetime on January 3rd. Having seen several wonderfully sordid commercials, I watched it and I loved every minute of it. I was really looking forward to watching it again but apparently, there was some sort of screw-up with my usually ultra-dependable DVR. It only recorded bits and pieces of Bad Sister.

I was so disappointed! Fortunately, however, I still remember Bad Sister well enough to review it. For instance, who could forget this scene?

Okay, technically, that was a scene from the episode of King of the Hill where Peggy pretends to be a nun so she can get a job teaching at a Catholic school. (“Sister Peggy, will my cat go to heaven?” “Well, I’ve heard that all dogs go to Heaven so I’m pretty sure that cats do not.”) For whatever reason, I couldn’t find any Bad Sister clips on YouTube but really, the movie has pretty much the same plot. It’s just, in the case of the movie, the fake nun is also a sociopath who starts to obsess on one of her students.

From the minute Sister Sophia (Alyshia Osche) shows up at her new job as a teacher at a Catholic boarding school, it’s obvious that she’s not like the other nuns. For one thing, she’s awfully enthusiastic about her students, especially the male ones. Plus, there’s not many nuns who specifically make it a point to strip down to sexy red lingerie while being watched by a teenage boy. Even beyond that, Sophia refuses to take part in Morning Prayer and she doesn’t seem to know much about … well, anything Catholic. Is Sister Sophia just young and naive or is it possible that she’s actually an escaped mental patient named Laura? And could it be that, perhaps at the start of the movie, Laura murdered the real Sister Sophia and stole her identity?

Well, this is a Lifetime movie so, of course, that’s exactly what happened!

As a result of seeing him sing on YouTube, Sister Sophia is obsessed with Jason (Devon Werkheiser, the star of Ned’s Declassified School Survival Guide, all grown up). Jason’s a student who dreams of being the next Justin Bieber. However, to get to Jason, Sister Sophia has to deal with not only Jason’s girlfriend (Sloane Avery) but also Jason’s suspicious sister, Zoe (Ryan Newman). And, of course, there’s Sister Rebecca (Helen Eigenberg), another nun who is starting to suspect that Sophia might not be who she says she is…

Bad Sister was a totally over-the-top masterpiece of Lifetime moviemaking. Director Doug Campbell is one of my favorite Lifetime directors and he doesn’t disappoint with Bad Sister, playing up the sordid melodrama while, at the same time, never making the mistake of taking this story too seriously. Alyshia Osche was brilliant as Sister Sophia. One of the most entertaining parts of the film was watching her switch back and forth from being the enthusiastic Sister Sophia and the perpetually annoyed Laura. (Just watch the scene where she goes through the real Sister Sophia’s stuff and discovers the boring, dowdy underwear that she’s expected to wear. The look of total and thorough annoyance that flashes across her face is absolutely brilliant acting on Osche’s part and, within seconds, totally and completely defines the character of Laura/Sister Sophia.)

Bad Sister was the first great Lifetime film of 2016! Keep an eye out for it.

(I should add that you probably don’t have to come from a Catholic background to enjoy Bad Sister. But it definitely helps!)

Cleaning Out The DVR #11: Going My Way (dir by Leo McCarey)

Posted on March 11, 2016 by Lisa Marie Bowman

Last night, continuing my effort to watch 38 movies in 10 days (and, for the record, I have 7 days left as of today), I watched the 1944 musical-comedy-drama Going My Way.

Going My Way tells the episodic story of Father Chuck O’Malley (Bing Crosby), a priest from St. Louis who is assigned to take charge of a struggling parish in New York City. O’Malley is meant to replace Father Fitzgibbon (Barry Fitzgerald), a stubbornly old-fashioned priest who is struggling to keep up with a changing world. Though O’Malley is to take charge of the parish’s affairs, Fitzgibbon is to remain the pastor. However, the compassionate O’Malley doesn’t tell Fitzgibbon about the arrangement and allows Fitzgibbon to believe that O’Malley is only meant to be his assistant.

It’s obvious from the start that Fitzgibbon and O’Malley have differing approaches. Fitzgibbon is a traditionalist. O’Malley, on the other hand, is a priest who sings. He’s a priest who understands that the best way to prevent the local teens from forming a street gang is to convince them to start a choir instead. When it appears that 18 year-old Carol (Jean Heather) is “living in sin,” it is the nonjudgmental O’Malley who convinces her to marry her boyfriend.

And, slowly but surely, Fitzgibbon and O’Malley start to appreciate each other. O’Malley is even able to convince Fitzgibbon to play a round of golf with him, while Fitzgibbon tells O’Malley about his love for his mother in Ireland.

What’s interesting is that we learn very little about O’Malley’s past. In many ways, he’s like a 1940s super hero or maybe a less violent and far more ethical version of one of Clint Eastwood’s western heroes. He shows up suddenly, he fixes things, and then he moves on. Instead of a cape or a poncho, he wears a collar.

(And, of course, he doesn’t kill anyone. Actually, that’s probably a lousy analogy but I decided I’d give it a try anyway…)

At one point, O’Malley does run into an opera singer named Genevieve Linden (Rise Stevens). He and Genevieve (whose real name is Jenny) talk briefly about their past and it becomes obvious that they once had a romantic relationship. We don’t learn the exact details but it does bring some unexpected melancholy to an otherwise cheerful film. It reminds us of what O’Malley gave up to become a priest.

Fortunately, Genevieve is more than happy to help out with O’Malley’s choir, even arranging for them to meet with a record executive (William Frawley). The executive doesn’t have much interest in religious music but then he hears ~~Bing~~ O’Malley sing Swinging On A Star.

It’s a bit strange to watch Going My Way today because it is a film that has not a hint of cynicism. There’s no way that a contemporary, mainstream film would ever portray a priest as positively as Father O’Malley is portrayed in this film. Indeed, it says something about the world that we live in that I instinctively cringed a little whenever O’Malley was working with the choir, largely because films like Doubt and Spotlight have encouraged me to view any film scene featuring a priest and an pre-teen boy with suspicion. O’Malley is the ideal priest, the type of priest that those of us who were raised Catholic wish that we could have known when we were young and impressionable. Bing Crosby does a pretty good job of playing him, too. Watching Going My Way felt like stepping into a time machine and going to a simpler and more innocent time.

In the end, Going My Way is a slight but watchable film. It doesn’t add up too much but, at the same time, it’s always likable. Though the film may be about a priest, the emphasis is less on religion and more on kindness, charity, and community. Going My Way was a huge success at the box office and even won the Oscar for best picture.

Personally, I would have given the Oscar to Double Indemnity but Going My Way is still a likable movie.

Speaking of likable, the Academy was so impressed with Barry Fitzgerald’s performance that they actually nominated it twice! He got so many votes in both categories that Fitzgerald ended up nominated for both Best Actor and Best Supporting Actor. Subsequently, the Academy changed the rules and decreed that a performance could only be nominated in one category. As for Fitzgerald, he won the Oscar for best supporting actor. He later broke the Oscar while practicing his golf swing.

Barry and Oscar

(Don’t worry. The Academy sent him a replacement.)

Cleaning Out The DVR #10: The Yearling (dir by Clarence Brown)

Posted on March 10, 2016 by Lisa Marie Bowman

After I finished Abduction: The Jocelyn Shaker Story, I decided to watch a film that was shown on TCM as a part of the 31 Days Of Oscars. When I started the 1946 film, The Yearling, I thought it was going to be a sweet and heartwarming little movie about a country boy raising a deer. Instead, it turned out to be a rather dark movie about how much it sucks to grow up in the country. I can only imagine how many childen, back in 1946, were scarred for life by this movie.

The movie is actually about two yearlings. The main one is Jody (Claude Jarman, Jr.), who lives in the bayous of 1878 Florida. His family is a farming and hunting family. They live in a small shack and struggle to make ends meet. His father, Penny Baxter (Gregory Peck) is … well, he’s Gregory Peck. He’s stern but warm and speaks with that deep voice that lets you know that you better pay attention to everything he says. While Penny is generally laid back and enjoys a good laugh, his wife, Ora (Jane Wyman), is far more serious and severe. Ora has lost three children and, as a result, she is both overprotective and emotionally distant from Jody.

Jody desperately wants a pet but Ora says that they can’t afford to feed any animals. However, one day, Penny is bitten by a snake. Apparently, the organs of a deer can be used to draw out snake venom. (Seriously, until I watched The Yearling, I had no idea this was the case. I once nearly stepped on a rattlesnake in New Mexico and it totally freaked me out. It’s good to know that if I ever do get attacked by a snake, all I have to do is kill a deer.) Penny shoots a doe and has Jody cut out its heart and liver. After doing so, Jody notices that the doe had a fawn. He begs to be allowed to adopt it and, overruling Ora, Penny says that he can.

After getting his deer, Jody goes to visit his best friend, Fodderwing (Donn Gift) and ask him what he thinks a good name would be. However, Fodderwing’s father informs Jody that his friend has just died. And really, that scene pretty much epitomizes what The Yearling is about. Because it’s told almost entirely from Jody’s point of view, the film may occasionally look like an old school Disney film. But death and hardship are very real in the world of The Yearling. People die, even children. Having a pet may make the reality easier to take but it doesn’t change the reality.

Jody names the deer Flag. As the film progresses, both Jody and Flag grow up. Unfortunately, as Flag gets older and bigger, he causes more and more trouble for both his family and the neighbors. He eats crops and he destroys fences. After Penny is injured, Jody is the one who ends up replanting the corn and fixing all the damage. But, even after all of Jody’s hard work, Flag still knocks down another fence. That’s when Jody is told that he must shoot his beloved pet…

And that’s why I went, “Agck! What type of movie is this!?”

Well, it’s a coming-of-age movie and, unfortunately, Jody is living at a time when growing up means giving up childish things. (That’s always been my least favorite verse in the Bible, by the way.) The Yearling itself is a pretty good film, though I do have one major problem with it. The film looks great and both Jane Wyman and Gregory Peck are expertly cast. If you keep an eye out, you’ll even spot Henry Travers — Clarence the Angel from It’s A Wonderful Life — in a small role.

That said, my main objection to The Yearling — the thing that keeps it from being quite as good as it could be — is the performance of Claude Jarman, Jr. In the role of Jody, Jarman goes so totally over-the-top with his line readings and his facial expressions that it immediately takes the viewer out of the film’s reality. Whenever anything happens — whether its Penny getting attack by a snake or his mother throwing a plate at his deer or Flag knocking over a fence — Jarman responds by standing there with his eyes and mouth wide open. His lines are delivered with a rushed enthusiasm that can’t hide the complete lack of authentic emotion in his performance. Claude Jarman tries really hard but it’s not surprising to discover that, after The Yearling, he only appeared in a few more films before joining the Navy and then subsequently moving behind the camera as a producer.

Then again, the Academy thought highly enough of Jarman’s performance to give him an honorary Oscar. The Yearling itself was nominated for best picture but it lost to another sad film about giving up childish things, The Best Years of Our Lives.

Cleaning Out The DVR #9: Abducted: The Jocelyn Shaker Story (dir by Conor Allyn)

Posted on March 10, 2016 by Lisa Marie Bowman

Last night, as a part of my continuing effort to watch 38 movies in 10 days, I watched Abducted: The Jocylen Shaker Story. Abducted originally aired February 14th on Lifetime. That’s right — this movie premiered on Valentine’s Day! I was in San Antonio when it aired, enjoying a romantic night down on the Riverwalk, so I missed the original showing. Fortunately, the DVR saves all.

And really, Abducted is a strange movie to show on Valentine’s Day. It’s not a romantic film at all. Instead, it’s a missing child thriller. Caitlin Shaker (Kathleen Rose Perkins) is an American who has married a wealthy Colombian businessman, Javier (Kamar de los Reyes). While Caitlin and Javier are visiting a resort in the rain forest, their daughter, Jocelyn, vanishes.

Suddenly, Caitlyn and Javier find themselves suspected of having done something to Jocelyn. Though one Colombian detective, Susanna (Eileen Roca Torralva), believes that Caitlin is innocent, she is ignored by her sexist superiors. The head of the investigation, Captain Rojas (Luis Fernando Hoyos), declares that Javier must be guilty and has him arrested for murder.

Caitlin knows that her husband is innocent but she can’t convince anyone to help her look for her child. The Colombian authorities want to close the case as quickly as possible. The American media declares that, even if they are innocent, Caitlin and Javier are still to be blamed for taking Jocelyn to a foreign country in the first place.

Eventually, only Susanna is willing to help Caitlin investigate Jocelyn’s disappearance…

The best thing about Abducted is that it gives Kathleen Rose Perkins a starring role. If you’ve ever seen the Showtime series Episodes, you will immediately recognize Perkins from her role as the wonderfully neurotic and often stoned network executive, Carol Rance. Episodes is a fairly terrible show but Perkins has always been one of the few bright spots. In Abducted, she really throws herself into the role of Caitlin, delivering her lines with an emotional intensity that always feels authentic and real. She is totally sympathetic in the role and elevates the entire film.

As for the film itself, it starts out as your standard Lifetime abduction film but the final 15 minutes, after the real villain has been revealed and Caitlin and Susanna are trying to rescue Jocelyn while rain pours around them, are exciting and well-executed. It helps that Perkins gives such a great performance that she makes even the most melodramatic and heavy-handed dialogue sound totally and completely credible. You won’t necessarily be surprised when you discover who the real villains is but you’ll still be happy to see them get their comeuppance.

(Comeuppance … that’s a strange word, no?)

Finally, Abducted was shot on location in Colombia. Reportedly, the Colombian government has been trying to attract filmmakers, with the hope of changing the country’s international image. Colombia is a beautiful country and Abducted takes full advantage of all that breathtaking scenery.

Cleaning Out The DVR #8: Kruel (dir by Robert Henderson)

Posted on March 9, 2016 by Lisa Marie Bowman

Last night, after I finished The More The Merrier and watched the latest episodes of Dance Moms and The People vs. OJ Simpson, I returned to the DVR and watched one more movie that I had recorded off of Lifetime. Kruel (which was broadcast with the slightly altered name of Cruel) is a dark little horror thriller. It is memorable for featuring the world’s creepiest ice cream man. (That’s him in the picture above.)

Now, when I say that Kruel was a dark film, I don’t just mean that it was thematically disturbing, though it certainly was. Instead, what I mean is that, at times, the film was literally dark! A good deal of the film took place either at night or in unlit rooms and there were more than a few scenes that took place in complete darkness. During those scenes, the screen was totally black and the only way you knew that there was still a film going on was because you could hear the characters running around and screaming. It was an interesting technique, one that was occasionally effective and occasionally annoying.

As for the film itself, it tells the story of Jo (Kierney Nelson), a teenage girl who, after he confesses to cheating on her, breaks up with her dumbass boyfriend, Ben (Dakota Morrissey). In order to deal with her depression, Jo devotes almost all of her time to babysitting. However, it would probably be a lot easier for Jo to do her job if not for the fact that, every few seconds, an ice cream truck comes rolling down the road. The ice cream truck is being driven by Willie (J.T. Chinn) and wow, is Willie ever creepy! It’s not just the makeup though, seriously, that would have terrified me when I was little. (It would still make me go, “Agck!” today.) It’s also the fact that Willie and his truck always seem to be nearby. Almost as if he’s stalking Jo…

When one of the kids that Jo babysits disappears, she knows that Willie kidnapped him. When the police ignore her, Jo decides to track down Willie herself. Volunteering to help is none other than dumbass Ben. Can Ben help to rescue the child while also repairing his relationship with Jo? Will Jo ever be able to forgive him for cheating on her? And will Willie ever take off his makeup…

Well, actually, I can go ahead and answer one of those questions without spoiling the movie. Willie does take off his makeup when he’s home and, in fact, he spends the majority of the movie not wearing any makeup at all. And, though I’m sure some horror fans would disagree with me on this, I think that’s the right decision for the story that Kruel is trying to tell. It’s definitely more realistic to have Willie look normal (well, normalish) when he’s just hanging out around his house. And, when it comes to a film like this, it’s good to try to keep things a little bit realistic. When Kruel is effective, it’s because it makes you wonder what you would do if you ever found yourself in the same situation. When the film is realistic, it makes you wonder if you could survive. If Willie never took off the makeup, he would be too cartoonish to be a real threat.

Despite being a low-budget film and featuring a few noticeably amateurish performances, Kruel has a nightmare-like intensity that serves it well. (The film features a throat slashing that, even though darky lit, is one of the most graphic things that I’ve ever seen on Lifetime.) J.T. Chinn is properly creepy as Willie and Kierney Nelson totally commits to the role of Jo, turning her into a sympathetic and compelling heroine.

Keep an eye out for Kruel.

(And Willie too…)

Cleaning Out The DVR #7: The More The Merrier (dir by George Stevens)

Posted on March 9, 2016 by Lisa Marie Bowman

After I finished with Watch On The Rhine, I decided to watch another film from 1943. Like Watch On The Rhine, The More The Merrier is a film about life during wartime and it takes place in Washington, D.C. However, that’s all that they have in common. Whereas Watch On The Rhine was a serious and somber affair, The More The Merrier is thoroughly delightful little comedy.

The More The Merrier opens with a retired millionaire named Benjamin Dingle (Charles Coburn) arriving in Washington D.C. He’s been asked to serve as an adviser for a commission that has been tasked with solving America’s housing shortage. (This was apparently a very real concern during World War II.) However, as soon as Dingle arrives, he finds directly effected by the problem that he’s supposed to be solving. His hotel room won’t be available for two days and he has no where to stay. After a quick look through the newspaper, Ben finds an ad for a roommate.

When he arrives at the apartment, he discovers a long line of men waiting outside. They’re all in the same situation as him and are hoping that Connie Milligan (Jean Arthur) will select him for her roommate. However, Connie picks Ben, largely because he’s old and rich and she won’t have to worry about him hitting on her on like most guys nor does she have to worry about him borrowing her clothes or getting jealous of her, like she would have to with a female roommate. Connie is engaged to a boring but well-paid bureaucrat named Charles Pendergrast (Richard Gaines). She doesn’t really love Pendergrast (and he has an annoying habit of shushing her) but, after growing up poor because her mother married for love, Connie is determined to not to make the same mistake.

Ben and Connie struggle, at first, to adjust to each other’s habits. Connie keeps to an exact schedule and claims to not have any use for frivolity. Ben is the exact opposite. The early scenes of them trying (and, of course, failing) to stay out of each other’s way are hilarious, with both Coburn and Arthur giving brilliant comedic performances. (I’m jealous of how wonderfully Jean Arthur could express exasperation.) Connie’s apartment is already small and it gets even smaller once she sublets half of it to Benjamin Dingle.

However, things are about to get even more crowded. One day, while out exploring Washington, Ben runs into Joe Carter (Joel McCrea), a sergeant who has a few days before he’s scheduled to be shipped overseas and who has no place to stay. Generously, Ben agrees to sublet half of his half of the apartment to Joe. Of course, Ben does this without telling Connie.

When, after another hilarious and artfully done sequence of the three new roommates wandering around the apartment and just barely missing each other, Connie discovers what Ben has done, she orders both Ben and Joe to leave the apartment. Ben agrees to do so, if she gives him back his security deposit. Unfortunately, Connie already spent that money on a hat…

So, they’re stuck together. Connie is attracted to Joe and Joe to Connie but Connie is also determined to marry Pendergrast. (When Joe scornfully says that he bets Pendergrast combs his hair “every hour on the hour,” Connie snaps back, “Mr. Pendergrast has no hair!”) Fortunately, Ben — being older and wiser — can see that Joe and Connie are perfect for each other and he starts doing everything he can to bring the two together.

As Ben says more than once, “Damn the torpedoes! Full speed ahead!”

Jean Arthur is one of my favorite actresses of Hollywood’s Golden Age. She had this perfect “no bullshit” attitude, mixed with an unexpected vulnerability. In The More The Merrier, she’s just as credible when she’s ordering Ben and Joe to leave as when she’s breaking into tears after she catches Ben reading her diary. In the role of Ben, Charles Coburn is warm, kind, and wonderfully eccentric. (When Joe asks him what does for a living, Ben cheerfully replies, “I’m a well-to-do retired millionaire. How ’bout you?”) And then you have Joel McCrea, in the role of the “cute but dumb” Joe Carter. He’s not really that dumb but he certainly is cute. Wisely, McCrea never tries to be funny. Instead, he gets most of his laughs just by reacting to all of the craziness going on around him.

Briskly directed by George Stevens, The More The Merrier features a snappy script from Frank Ross, who was married to Jean Arthur. It’s full of hilarious lines but, at the same time, there’s an undercurrent of melancholy to it as well. Hanging, like a shadow over all of the comedy and the romance, is the fact that Joe is soon going to be shipped overseas. Even while you laugh, you’re very aware that there’s a chance he might not be coming back. That reality brings an unexpected depth to the film’s otherwise cheerful love story.

The More The Merrier was nominated for best picture but it lost to Casablanca. However, Charles Coburn did win the Oscar for best supporting actor.

Cleaning Out The DVR #6: Watch On The Rhine (dir by Herman Shumlin)

Posted on March 9, 2016 by Lisa Marie Bowman

After I finished watching Around The World In 80 Days, I decided to watch the 1943 film, Watch on the Rhine. Though both films are immortalized in the record books as a multiple Oscar nominee, Watch on The Rhine might as well have taken place in a totally different universe from Around The World In 80 Days. Based on a play by the always politically outspoken Lillian Hellman, Watch On The Rhine is as serious a film as Around The World In 80 Days is frivolous.

It’s also somewhat infamous for being the film for which Paul Lukas won an Oscar for best actor. When Lukas won his Oscar, he defeated Humphrey Bogart, who was nominated for his iconic performance in Casablanca. This is justifiably considered to be one of the biggest mistakes in Oscar history and, as a result, there are people who will tell you that Watch On The Rhine is a totally undeserving nominee, despite having never actually seen the film and not being totally sure who Paul Lukas was.

Up until I watched the film yesterday, you could have included me among those people.

What’s interesting is that Watch On The Rhine almost feels like a companion piece to Casablanca. Both films were resolutely anti-fascist, both of them dealt with a member of the Resistance trying to escape from a German agent, and both films climaxed with a gunshot. The part played by Paul Lukas, a German engineer named Kurt Muller, feels like he could be an older version of Casablanca‘s Victor Laszlo. Finally, whereas Casablanca centered around “letters of transit,” Watch On The Rhine centers around money. Kurt is smuggling money to the Resistance. Teck de Brancovis (George Coulouris), a dissolute Romanian count, demands money in exchange for not informing the Germans of where Kurt’s location.

(Of course, both Casablanca’s letters and Watch on the Rhine’s money are an example of what Hitchcock called the MacGuffin. The letters and the money are not important. What’s important is that both films use the thriller format to inspire viewers to support the war effort.)

The film takes place in 1940, when America was still officially neutral. Kurt and his American wife, Sara (Bette Davis), have secretly entered the United States through Mexico. Officially, they are only visiting Sara’s brother (Donald Woods) and mother (Lucille Watson) in Washignton, D.C. Unofficially, they are looking for political sanctuary. However, Kurt still finds himself drawn back to Germany, especially after he finds out that one of his friends in the Resistance has been arrested by the Gestapo.

Not surprisingly, considering its theatrical origins, Watch On The Rhine is a very talky and a very stage-bound film. Almost all of the action takes place in one location and a good deal of the film’s running time is devoted to Kurt giving speeches. Don’t get me wrong, that’s not a complaint. Though the film may have been released at the height of the war, the play was written at a time when America was still officially neutral and many elected officials were adamant that, even if it meant Hitler taking over the entire continent, America should never get involved in the affairs of Europe. Watch On The Rhine was Hellman’s attempt to both expose what was happening in Germany and to rally them to the anti-fascist cause. Watch On The Rhine may be propaganda but its anti-Nazi propaganda and who can’t appreciate the importance of that?

When it was originally released, Watch On The Rhine was sold as a Bette Davis vehicle. To be honest, Davis doesn’t really do much in the film. She supports her husband and she has a few sharp words for Teck but, otherwise, her role is definitely secondary to Paul Lukas. Davis took the role because she believed in the film’s message. It’s a good message and, for that matter, Watch On The Rhine is a pretty good film. It’s well-acted, intelligently written, and perfectly paced.

But what about Paul Lukas’s Oscar? Well, let’s state the obvious. Humphrey Bogart should have won the award for Casablanca. That doesn’t mean that Paul Lukas doesn’t give a worthy performance. He originated the role on stage and he does a good job of bringing the character to life on film, bringing a sincere intensity to even the most stagey of Kurt’s monologues. Whenever Lukas speaks, he’s explaining to the filmgoers why the U.S. must take a stand against Hitler and his followers. Considering that Watch On The Rhine was released at the height of World War II, I imagine that this, more than anything, led to Lukas winning his Oscar.

Watch On The Rhine was also nominated for Best Picture. It was deserved nomination but, in this case, the Academy made the right decision and gave the Oscar to Casablanca.