Is This Movie Good? Would You Recommend It?

I got a good conversation going, which suits my purpose just fine.

Holy moly I forgot! Mercedes McCambridge played Elizabeth Taylor's whiny mother in "Suddenly Last Summer". What a change in character THAT was from "Johnny Guitar" and "Giant".

Thanks Brandon.

Looks like I am going to find Johnny Guitar. I love what's been said about it so far.

Can't forget Mercedes as the threatening gang leader giving Janet Leigh a drugged out scare in "Touch of Evil," likely the real king of all film noir. Only see the restored Orson Welles version. She was not even in the credits!

I hope that others will use this thread to inquire about movies they are contemplating renting or buying.

There are two running threads, more than one previously in the favorites, where we were posting what DVD's were suggested to rent, like:

http://www.able2know.com/forums/viewtopic.php?t=89366

That could get reinstated to replace a slow thread in the top ten with 116 posts, but I'm thinking maybe this would be a refreshing new discussion covering the same ground.

The poster has to remain active in the discussion to keep the posts coming in!

I can bring the pot, Diane. Sounds great.

Love the noir...

[size=7]sssshhhh...I'll bring the papers...[/size]

ha!!!

Re: Is This Movie Good? Would You Recommend It?


Amazon.com has a bunch of reviews on it's website!

Johnny Guitar

A review from The Guardian:

http://film.guardian.co.uk/Century_Of_Films/Story/0,4135,37234,00.html

The dialogue would make Tarentino jump for joy -- some of seems like it would work as well if it were in "Pulp Fiction" (except for cowboy references, but why no a cowboy in "Pulp Fiction" -- I really miss a cowboy in that movie).

Memorable quotes for
Johnny Guitar (1954)

Johnny: There's only two things in this world that a 'real man' needs: a cup of coffee and a good smoke.

Dancin' Kid: I didn't get your name stranger.
Johnny: Guitar. Johnny Guitar.
Dancin' Kid: You call that a name?
Johnny: Care to try and change it?

Dancin' Kid: I like you, Guitar Man. How'd you like to work for me?
Johnny: I wouldn't.
Dancin' Kid: Now all of a sudden I don't like you.
Johnny: Now that makes me real sad.

Johnny: How many men have you forgotten?
Vienna: As many women as you've remembered.

Johnny: Don't go away.
Vienna: I haven't moved.
Johnny: Tell me something nice.
Vienna: Sure, what do you want to hear?
Johnny: Lie to me. Tell me all these years you've waited. Tell me.
Vienna: [without feeling] All those years I've waited.
Johnny: Tell me you'd a-died if I hadn't come back.
Vienna: [without feeling] I woulda died if you hadn't come back.
Johnny: Tell me you still love me like I love you.
Vienna: [without feeling] I still love you like you love me.
Johnny: [bitterly] Thanks. Thanks a lot.

Emma: You're nothing but a railroad tramp.
Emma: I'm going to kill you.
Vienna: I know. If I don't kill you first.

Dancin' Kid: Bart, you don't drink, you don't smoke, you're mean to horses. What do you like?
Bart: Me! I like me! And I'm takin' good care of me!

Vienna: You shouldn't have come back, Tom.
Old Tom: I won't be in the way.
Vienna: I can't have anyone here.
Old Tom: Nobody notices me. I'm just part of the furniture.

Vienna: Down there I sell whiskey and cards. All you can buy up these stairs is a bullet in the head. Now which do you want?

Vienna: If you remember, McGyvers gave me 24 hours to close. I drew out my own money, paid off my boys... and I'm closed. You can't buy a drink or turn a card. I'm sitting here in my own house, minding my own business, playing my own piano. I don't think you can make a crime out of that.

Johnny: [starting a song] Her name was Emma Smalls, Emma Smalls.
Emma: You all think she's some fine lady and that doing nothing makes you fine gentlemen. Well she ain't! And you're not!

Old Tom: [dying words] Look... everybody's looking at me. It's the first time I ever felt important.


Remember Nicholas Ray was the same director who gave us "Rebel Without a Cause" and "They Live By Night" (his first feature film out of the UK)

Lash and eoe are prime examples of the fact that there are some gooooood women here on a2k.

Saw "Night and the City" last night. The supplements were excellent on this disc, especially commentary and a French cinema magazine interview with the director Jules Dassin who subsequently directed "Rififi." He was one of the shunned suspected Communists in Hollywood during McCarthyism and made several French films in semi-exile. The film centers around Richard Widmark's hustler, con-artist persona. One of the points that came out of the Dassin interview was his trials and tribulations working in the studio system, especially under Louis B. Mayer.

This film was made because of Darryl F. Zanuck getting Dassin out of the country to rush the shooting of this film. Dassin was so much under pressure, he didn't even read the original novel it was based on and later found out that his film hardly resembled the characters and story.

It's superb film noir for its performances and camera work, the final scene shot with six cameras in a first take!

Dassin also made "The Naked City" which the studio mutilated by editing out any social commentary that was about subjects like the working class in New York -- all having to do with the paranoia of the McCarthy years.

It was remade with Robert DeNiro and Jessica Lange:

http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0105001/

"Johnny Guitar" was on TCM Saturday night. Anyone catch it?