Movies

I've been plowing through some stuff that isn't really worth examining in depth but just because I know you care so much about what kind of crazy crap I like to view, here is a brief overview. The Women may be the best pure melodrama made in America because it is top quality in every respect. So they took that and made it into a widescreen color spectacle with a few songs jammed in for good measure and called it The Opposite Sex (1956). June Allyson, with her wasplike face and impervious cast bronze hairstyle has always creeped me out, and she is the hero. This was a very bad period for women's hats, and they range from early salad bowl to speedy alkaseltzer, but the gowns by Helen Rose add a dreamlike touch. I got a bunch of offbeat '60s movies including utterly unwatchable exploitation crap with names like The Curse of Her Flesh, and among them was 99 Women (1969), the first movie I have seen by Spanish shock hack Jess Franco. It's a cheap women's prison story made interesting primarily by warden Mercedes McCambridge's seething fury. Le monacle noir (1961) is a lite espionage story starring one of the Frenchest guys who ever lived, Paul Meurisse. It's harmless. The Day They Robbed the Bank of England (1960) is a heist story based on an historic turn of the century attempt by Irish nationalists to do what the title says. It's a HEIST. Will they succeed? I'd like to see a heist flick where they do. Is that all? I guess it is.

NO! I forgot Treno Popolare (1933), a pleasant slice of Italian life, following a disparate group of urbanites on a day trip from Rome to Orvieto on a working-class excursion train. Music by Nino Rota shows a trace of his future style. Pleasant, nice to see and not challenging in any way.