Honky Tonk, 1941
Hard not to like the characters and dynamics that propel this movie to its anti-climactic finish.
I Dood It, 1943
This was an awful movie. That said, the first number is solid, and there is a bit with a multiple jump rope dance that _must_ be repeated. Please think worse of Red Skelton for this effort.
That's Right -- You're Wrong, 1939
Unless you were a big fan of Kay Kyser's radio show "Kay Kyser's Kollege of Musical Knowledge," you have no reason to see this movie at all.
But at the end there is this song "Chatterbox," and I was moved by how pretty it was. I'm just talking about her voice.
Chatterbox MP3. Her trill at about 2:00 is basically the best, but it might be better in the movie.
The Cat's Paw, 1934
Harold Lloyd plays a sap in a town of crooked racketeers, raised in China, he quotes an (imaginary?) Chinese philosopher aptly, even as most everything else he does is out of place. Of course the premise is hard to swallow, but the execution is good, making it the first Lloyd movie I enjoyed this much.
Topaze, 1933
John Barrymore is an actor I tend to always like. This is a quaint movie, with some too true lessons. Enjoyable.
A Walk in the Sun, 1945
This is
the war movie, the opposite of Saving Private Ryan. The title song is useless and too oft repeated, but that could be replaced for future re-releases. The soldiers grumble, complain, and not a positive word is said of the war effort without a sardonic or sarcastic tone. The whole movie is about a platoon who lands in Salerno and is told to take a farmhouse, six miles away. It's not that the idea behind WWII is unimportant, it is that it is completely unimportant to someone trying to complete a mission and survive.
During the war itself, most war movies were over-the-top patriotic, but this, as some IMDB reviewers have it, is the war from the soldier's perspective. Another commenter writes "My uncle, a veteran of Tunisia who went into Salerno as a Ranger, hated most war films, but not this one."
The Kid From Spain, 1932
As with other movies of this era, the repetitious use of one song can be quite annoying, and there are numerous other parts of this relatively slapstick movie which would discourage one from watching it, yet, for some reason, the jokes are funny and the movie is happy.
Libeled Lady, 1936
This is a movie with some great dialogue, and a solid performance from William Powell and Myrna Loy. Worth a watch.
