Oh. My. Goodness—why am I so pretty?

Average rating: 6.5  Spoiler alert on the third selection, though if anyone reading this has the slightest desire to watch that movie, I'd be amazed.

Come and Get It (1936) - "In 1880s Wisconsin, ambitious lumberjack Barney Glasgow (Edward Arnold) loves saloon girl Lotta (Frances Farmer) but spurns her and marries to advance his career. While Lotta marries his friend (Walter Brennan) and has a daughter, Barney becomes a lumber bigwig by ruthless deforestation. Years later, the late Lotta's daughter, also named Lotta (and played by the same actress), becomes the object of affection of both Barney, hoping to recapture the love he lost, and his son, Richard (Joel McCrea)."
length: 1 hour, 39 minutes

source: I borrowed the DVD from the public library    
I watched it because: Joel McCrea...

IMDB: 6.8/10  -  Rotten Tomatoes: Tomatometer: 91% Audience: 68%
my IMDB: 7/10

MPAA rating: Approved

notable quote: "We'll crash New York together - just a couple of rubes from the Middle West."

directed by: Howard Hawks, William Wyler, Richard Rosson

my notes: surprising, racy, funny, and a little uncomfortable, but in a good way. McCrea is very good as Richard Glasgow, and Frances Farmer is terrific in the dual roles. Brennan makes a realistic, if excessively comedic, sidekick as Swan. This was my introduction to Edward Arnold, and in a challenging role of Barney Glasgow, on his inexorable slide. His subconscious giggle is incredibly telling. And the ending has left me thinking.

Academy Award winner: Best Supporting Actor—Walter Brennan
Academy Award nominee:  Best Film Editing—Edward Curtiss
overall:  recommended

One Night in Miami (2020) - "On one incredible night in 1964, four icons of sports, music, and activism gathered to celebrate one of the biggest upsets in boxing history. When underdog Cassius Clay (Eli Goree)—soon to be called Muhammad Ali—defeats heavy weight champion Sonny Liston at the Miami Convention Hall, Clay memorialized the event with three of his friends: Malcolm X (Kingsley Ben-Adir), Sam Cooke (Leslie Odom Jr.) and Jim Brown (Aldis Hodge)."
length: 1 hour, 54 minutes

source: I borrowed the DVD from the public library
I watched it because: I've been thinking about it since I heard that Leverage: Redemption (2021-), season 3, would be released this month

    previously reviewed here
IMDB: 7.1/10  -  Rotten Tomatoes: Tomatometer: 98% Audience: 78%
my IMDB: 8/10

MPAA rating: R

notable quote: "There is no more room for ... anyone to be on the fence anymore!"

directed by: Regina King

my notes: this is a devastating film. It kicked me in the ass, broke my heart, and made me think. The stars of the film are outstanding, ideally suited for the role that they played. These are four hard men who have been, and would be, tested. It's a Black movie, and an American movie, and a movie, about people that are worth caring about. 

    And if you don't get chills during the Boston concert scene, you must be clinically dead. 

Academy Award nominee:
• Best Supporting Actor—Leslie Odom, Jr.

• Best Adapted Screenplay—Kemp Powers

• Best Achievement in Music Written for Motion Pictures (Original Song)—Leslie Odom, Jr., Sam Ashworth (music and lyric by)

overall: highly recommended

Magnificent Obsession (1954) - "Reckless playboy Robert Merrick (Rock Hudson) is in a boat accident, and his condition requires a resuscitator to save his life. Soon afterward Dr. Phillips has a heart attack and needs the same machine. Without it, Dr. Phillips dies. Due to his philanthropy and his wife Helen's accident, she (Jane Wyman) has very little money. Merrick then tries to right his wrongs with Helen—falling in love with her in the process—and decides to turn to the study of medicine to become a surgeon."
length: 1 hour, 48 minutes

source: I borrowed the DVD from the public library
I watched it because: not sure what brought this to my attention, but I watched the Criterion Collection version so maybe I found it that way?
IMDB: 7.0/10  -  Rotten Tomatoes: Tomatometer: 88% Audience: 72%
my IMDB: 4/10

MPAA rating: Approved

notable quote: "Now wait, Merrick! Don't try to use this unless you're ready for it! You can't just try this out for a week like a new car, you know! And if you think you can feather your own nest with it, just forget it. Besides, this is dangerous stuff. One of the first men who used it went to the Cross at the age of thirty-three..."

directed by: Douglas Sirk

my notes: it's not the worst movie ever, but it certainly is a strange one. Hudson's Merrick is almost impossible to like through 7/8 of the film, and that other 1/8 is laughably implausible. His motivation for behaving the way he does is "explained" in a couple of toss-in lines, easily missed, so he seems like a jerk just for the sake of being a jerk. Wyman was only 8 years older than him, and only 37 when this came out, but good lord does she look older than him, and (is this an objective observation?) far less attractive. In other words, his motivation for falling for her is also inexplicable—and matches, in that mystification, hers for him. Otto Kruger's character, Randolph, is annoyingly smug and righteous; if this were a Christmas movie he'd be the Santa figure. His overt religiosity is a clank in this awful symphony, since no one else comes close to that sentiment.

    I didn't hate it. In fact, I was bizarrely glued to it from start to finish. It's just so freakin' off-the-wall!

Academy Award nominee: Best Actress—Jane Wyman
overall:  recommended only as a curiosity

 

Ride the High Country (1962) - "Reduced to transporting gold from a distant mine to a small-town bank, retired lawman Steve Judd (Joel McCrea) recruits friend Gil Westrum (Randolph Scott), who has been performing in a traveling carnival. Unknown to Steve, the restless Gil and a young drifter intend to steal the next gold transport. On the way, the men help Elsa Knudsen (Mariette Hartley) to break free from her zealot father and join her fiance at the mine, not realizing the consequences that await them all."
length: 1 hour, 34 minutes

source: I borrowed the DVD from the public library
I watched it because: ..Joel McCrea
IMDB: 7.4/10  -  Rotten Tomatoes: Tomatometer: 89% Audience: 83%
my IMDB: 7/10

MPAA rating: Approved

notable quote: "'I must say, Mr. Judd, I expected a much younger man.'

    'Well, I used to be. We all used to be.'"

directed by: Sam Peckinpah

my notes: McCrea is excellent (and gorgeous), Randolph Scott is very good, and Ron Starr is hilarious as the hothead Heck Longtree. Mariette Hartley is a "meh" for me, too redolent of after-school specials from my generation, but she plays the young and willful Elsa with dogged cheer. With one caveat, this is a good Western.

    I just cannot stand rape scenes, much less this gleeful gang-rape/incest storyline. It's gross and unnecessary. The menace of the perpetrators could be (and was) conveyed in other ways. Were movie audiences so blasé when this came out, to make that reasonable and unoffensive?

overall:  recommended with reservations

 

[the title quotation is from One Night in Miami]