Talk About Cinema

The 1957 version of 12 Angry Men is one of my favorite movies of all time. It's a small setting consisting of basically just 12 actors sitting and talking, which might not sound too engaging on paper, but is actually quite thought-provoking and exciting as it goes along. For those who don't know, they are discussing the fate of an 18-year-old boy who is on trial for allegedly killing his father. It's never revealed whether or not he was guilty of the act, but the point is that the jurors have to decide if there's enough of a reasonable doubt to declare him not guilty; otherwise, he will receive the death sentence. Rather than doing a review, today I thought I'd do something a little different. Each juror in this movie has a distinguishable personality and I've decided to rank the jurors on those personalities. I want to make it absolutely clear: this is not a ranking of the actors's performances, because, frankly, it's just impossible to do so give...

Remember how I said Abbott and Costello Meet Frankenstein was a strange idea for a crossover? Well, that's a normal idea compared to the idea of Abbott and Costello's second and last color film, Abbott and Costello Meet Captain Kidd . At least the Universal Monsters were already part of a long-lasting franchise. Captain Kidd was a 1945 dramatic film featuring Charles Laughton in the role of the title character. They even managed to get Laughton on board to reprise his role for this film. Why they chose Captain Kidd specifically to make a crossover with, we may never know. Abbott and Costello play Rocky Stonebridge and Oliver Johnson, a pair of tavern workers who are entrusted by Lady Jane (Fran Warren) with the task of delivering a love note to their co-worker, Bruce Martingale (Bill Shirley). Captain Kidd (Laughton) and his crew are in town and while serving him, Oliver mixes up the letter with an important map belonging to Captain Kidd. Rocky seizes on this opportunity to ...

The Railrodder (top) and Buster Keaton Rides Again (bottom) After leaving Columbia Pictures in the early 1940s, Buster Keaton shifted his focus away from the field of short subjects and instead focused on other ventures, including gag writing at MGM and television appearances. However, he did do a few more short subjects during this later period in his life. Paradise for Buster (1952), which was an industrial short, did manage to maintain Keaton's style of humor, but was a bit long and wore out its welcome towards the end. The Scribe (1966) was a mediocre educational film for worker safety that basically involved Keaton running away from construction workers while also showing them a list of safety rules. Film (1965) was written by Samuel Beckett...and like Beckett's other works, I just flat out don't understand it. ...I don't get it. Then there's The Railrodder , also released in 1965. This short film was produced by the National Film Board of Can...

Disney had a good lock on the animated feature film market in the U.S. during the mid-20th century. I don't mean that judging by their box office receipts; I mean that they were the only company making animated features in the U.S. for most of that period. Prior to the 1950s, only one other studio in the U.S. even attempted to compete in this market for a brief time: Fleischer Studios, otherwise known as the team behind the Popeye cartoons, the Betty Boop cartoons, and Out of the Inkwell . Today I'll be reviewing the first of their two feature film efforts, Gulliver's Travels . Gulliver's Travels  takes part in Lilliput, an island of tiny people. King Little (Jack Mercer) and King Bombo (Tedd Pierce) sign a wedding contract for the marriage of their children, but call it off and go to war after failing to agree on the wedding song. Meanwhile, Gulliver (Sam Parker), has landed on the beach and the Lilliputians initially fear him due to his large size. After scaring off...

At first glance, Lost in Alaska wouldn't appear to be all that promising of a film given that the whole snowy theme was already done in Hit the Ice . But while Lost in Alaska does have a few problems (very few Abbott and Costello films don't), overall it actually does manage to be a pretty solid comedy film. Lost in Alaska finds Abbott and Costello playing Tom Watson and George Bell, two volunteer firemen who save the life of "Nugget" Joe McDermott (Tom Ewell) after he attempts to kill himself. McDermott had struck rich in the Yukon, but decided to end his life when his girlfriend, Rosette (Mitzi Green) stopped loving him. He later receives a telegram from Rosette claiming she still loves him and decides to return to the Yukon with Tom and George in tow, since the newspapers mistakenly reported that Joe had been murdered by the two of them. In Alaska, Tom and George must protect Joe from "old-timers" who want to kill Joe for his gold. The story is dec...

Jack and the Beanstalk marked the first of two independent films that Abbott and Costello made to be distributed by Warner Bros. Both were filmed in color and clearly had high production values put towards them, certainly higher than their most recent Universal film . Does this make it a good movie? Eh...kind of. Costello plays Jack, who is given the task of babysitting the siblings of Eloise Larkin (Shaye Cogan). While attempting to read the story of "Jack and the Beanstalk" to Eloise's brother Donald (David Stollery), Donald instead ends up reading it to Jack and makes him fall asleep. In his dreams, Jack imagines himself as the Jack from the fairy tale, with Abbott portraying Mr. Dinklepuss, the man who cons him into trading his cow for magic beans. When the beans grow into a beanstalk, Jack and Mr. Dinklepuss climb it in an attempt to find everything that was stolen by the giant, including a princess and a prince (Cogan and James Alexander). This is one of the mor...