Wednesday, November 1, 2017

Movies I Watched in October


October turned out to be Jane Fonda/Robert Redford/1970s month. I've posted before on my blog facebook page and on twitter my pitifully small list of films I've seen and enjoyed from the 1970s so I was excited to find three films (two starring Jane Fonda) and a TV mini-series that I enjoyed. And due to my access to WatchTCM I have been able to see many movies I would have never recorded (aka I watched a ridiculous amount of movies this month).

Does anyone else think Drew Barrymore looks like Zita Johann?
 I thought they must be related but they aren't.

I watched the Sissi trilogy starring Romy Schneider, making it's TCM debut. I loved it! I took a ton of screenshots of the lavish costumes and  gorgeous Austrian scenery, where it was filmed. The trilogy, and Schneider's The Story of Vickie, were my first German language films! A new dvd set of the four films, plus the condensed-into-one dubbed English Sissi movie Forever My Love, was released yesterday! It also includes a 20 min. making of feature and a 20 page booklet. You can buy it here. I really want it!


Two movies I was happy to FINALLY get around to watching were The Mummy (1932), Old Acquaintance (1943), and The Innocents (1961). I also watched my first Lizabeth Scott, Margaret Lockwood, Romy Schneider, Marge & Gower Champion, and Robert Donat films! I also discovered Paula Prentiss in Where the Boys Are (1960). I'm excited to watch all of her films from the 60s!

(* means a rewatch)
  1. The Mummy (1932) - Boris Karloff, Zita Johann
  2. Murder in the Private Car (1934) - Charles Ruggles, Una Merkel
  3. Knight Without Armour (1937) - Robert Donat & Marlene Dietrich
  4. Joy of Living (1938) - Irene Dunne & Douglas Fairbanks Jr., Lucille Ball
  5. Castle on the Hudson (1940) - John Garfield & Ann Sheridan, Pat O'Brien, Burgess Meredith
  6. The Great Lie (1941) - Bette Davis, Mary Astor, George Brent
  7. All Through the Night (1942) - Humphrey Bogart, Conrad Veidt, Peter Lorre
  8. Joe Smith, American (1942) - Robert Young & Marsha Hunt, Darryl Hickman
  9. The Affairs of Martha (1942) - Marsha Hunt, Marjorie Main
  10. I Walked with a Zombie (1943) - Frances Dee, Tom Conway
  11. Old Acquaintance (1943) - Bette Davis, Miriam Hopkins, Gig Young
  12. A Place of One's Own (1945) - Margaret Lockwood, James Mason
  13. Anna and the King of Siam (1946) - Rex Harrison & Irene Dunne, Linda Darnell, Lee J. Cobb, Gale Sondergaard
  14. Boomerang (1947) - Dana Andrews & Jane Wyatt
  15. *Portrait of Jennie (1948) - Joseph Cotten & Jennifer Jones, Ethel Barrymore
  16. April Showers (1948) - Jack Carson & Ann Sothern
  17. Night Unto Night (1949) - Ronald Reagan
  18. Easy Living (1949) - Victor Mature, Lizabeth Scott, Lucille Ball, Los Angeles Rams
  19. The Narrow Margin (1952) - Marie Windsor
  20. Lone Star (1952) - Clark Gable & Ava Gardner
  21. Scaramouche (1952) - Mel Ferrer, Janet Leigh, Eleanor Parker
  22. The Actress (1953) - Jean Simmons, Spencer Tracy, Teresa Wright, Anthony Perkins
  23. Miss Sadie Thompson (1953) - Rita Hayworth, Aldo Ray, Jose Ferrer
  24. Easy to Love (1953) - Esther Williams & Van Johnson
  25. Give a Girl a Break (1953) - Marge & Gower Champion, Debbie Reynolds
  26. The Blue Gardenia (1953) - Anne Baxter, Raymond Burr, Ann Sothern
  27. The Story of Vickie/Victoria in Dover/Mdchenjahre einer Knigin (1954 - German) - Romy Schneider, Magda Schneider, Adrian Hoven, Karl Ludwig Diehl
  28. Sissi (1955 - German) - Romy Schneider & Karlheinz Böhm, Magda Schneider
  29. Trial (1955) - Glenn Ford & Dorothy McGuire
  30. World Without End (1955) - Hugh Marlowe, Rod Taylor
  31. The Solid Gold Cadillac (1956) - Judy Holliday & Paul Douglas
  32. Sissi: The Young Empress (1956 - German) - Romy Schneider & Karlheinz Böhm, Magda Schneider
  33. Sissi: The Fateful Years of an Empress (1957 - German) - Romy Schneider & Karlheinz Böhm, Magda Schneider
  34. *Until They Sail (1957) - Jean Simmons & Paul Newman, Joan Fontaine, Sandra Dee, Piper Laurie
  35. Where the Boys Are (1960) - Dolores Hart, George Hamilton, Yvette Mimoux, Jim Hutton, Paula Prentiss, Connie Francis
  36. The Innocents (1961) - Deborah Kerr
  37. Man's Favorite Sport? - (1964) - Rock Hudson & Paula Prentiss
  38. *Cat Ballou (1965) - Jane Fonda, Lee Marvin, Michael Callan
  39. Any Wednesday (1966) - Jane Fonda, Jason Robards, Dean Jones
  40. *Barefoot in the Park (1967) - Robert Redford & Jane Fonda, Mildred Natwick, Charles Boyer
  41. *Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid (1969) - Paul Newman, Robert Redford, Katharine Ross 
  42. What's Up, Doc? (1972) - Barbra Streisand & Ryan O'Neal, Madeline Kahn
  43. Little Women (1978) - Dorothy McGuire, Robert Young, Greer Garson 
  44. The Electric Horseman (1979) - Robert Redford & Jane Fonda
  45. The China Syndrome (1979) - Jane Fonda, Jack Lemmon, Michael Douglas
  46. Our Souls at Night (2017) - Robert Redford & Jane Fonda
Least Favorite Film of the Month: It was a pretty good month for me. Scaramouche was kind of lame but I was watching it for Eleanor Parker. Same goes for The Actress and Jean Simmons. And I didn't like the rape storyline in Where the Boys Are. It had started out as such a fun movie! Also, I really wanted Esther Williams to walk out on Van Johnson in Easy to Love. She deserved better! The Florida-shaped pool was pretty epic though :)

Favorite Movie: The Sissi Trilogy, as I mentioned above. The Solid Gold Cadillac was great (despite the author's contrary opinion in Holliday's biography...) as well as the Fonda films. Our Souls at Night was very sweet. I would highly recommend it to any Fonda/Redford fan (get the one month free trial if you have to). What's Up, Doc? was a throwback to the Screwball days, a la Bringing Up Baby. Also, Rod Taylor was adorable in World Without End ;)

Some months there are too many movies I enjoyed and I feel like I should write little blurbs about some of them. Would anyone be interested in that?

Paula Prentiss

8 comments:

  1. You had a busy month! I'm not generally a fan of seventies films either, but I do enjoy Robert Redford and Jane Fonda. I also watched What's Up Doc and Sissi for the first time as well as Where the Boys Are. I'm a fan of Robert Donat and enjoyed Knight Without Armor. Although I wonder if there was a stranger casting than Donat with Dietrich?

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    1. The films I've seen from the 70s and enjoyed are either ones with Classic movie stars (John Wayne) or comedies so I was happy to finally add one a little more serious :)

      This was my first Donat film so him and Dietrich seemed fine together to me. However, I do feel like whoever is paired with Dietrich is always a little odd as she's so different from most actresses.

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  2. Little blurbs would be fun! I mean, I'm already always sooooooo envious of all your movie-watching time, so what's a little more envy? Hee.

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    1. Don't be. It can be tiring watching so many movies (I was up till 3am trying to finish the Sissi movies before it was taken down off the TCM app) but I have the time now (and access to TCM), which won't always be the case in the future :)

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    2. Hee. Well, I guess I had kind of the same thing going on all through college and the first few years of my marriage, where I sort of crammed as many movies into myself as I could.

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  3. I'd read your blurbs.

    So, Knight Without Armour was your first Robert Donat movie? Wait until you see Goodbye, Mr. Chips!

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  4. I enjoyed reading your list of watched films. I'm quite a bit behind in catching up with current films, so I've never even heard of Our Souls at Night, but it's nice that Redford and Fonda are together again in a film. That's one I might like to see soon. Thanks.

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    1. Thanks! Yeah, I don’t watch a lot of current movies and when I do I’m a couple years late lol. I only knew of Our Souls at Night because it was advertised on Netflix.

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